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Billingham, Richard 
ORCID: 0000-0002-6474-5656
(2013)
Video Work Exhibited in 'Fault Lines', Kadist, San Francisco, (11 September – 23 September 2013) curated by Constance Lewallen.
[Show/Exhibition]
Abstract
Photographic work from Billingham's series 'Rays a Laugh' was exhibited in 'Fault Lines', Kadist, San Francisco, (11 September – 23 September 2013) curated by Constance Lewallen. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina) The artists selected for this exhibition have all looked deeply into problems besetting the contemporary family. In each case, a family is physically or emotionally torn. Perhaps the intact, happy family has always been an unrealistic ideal achievable only in anodyne 1950s TV sitcoms. However, the happy home based on traditional assumptions seems increasingly fantastical and “family values” as such are not only being called into question, but the very phrase is now code for regressive politics. Billingham's Art video Fishtank was included because of its unflinching honesty. In Pork and Milk (2004) French artist Valérie Mréjen interviewed young Israelis who have abandoned their ultra-orthodox families in order to lead secular lives, whereas the separation of mother and child in Mona Hatoum’s video Measures of Distance (1989) was a result of the 1975 Lebanese civil war. The Russian collective Chto Delat’s comical A Border Musical (2013) revealed differing cultural expectations of family life, while Untitled (2009) by Israeli-born artist Keren Cytter featured a backstage rehearsal that ended in a violent act against a family member. Ryan Trecartin, in one of his earliest videos Kitchen Girl (2001), took maternal frustration to hysterical extremes. Two evening screenings continued the theme: Continuity (2012) by Berlin-based artist Omer Fast dealt with the psychological ravages of war, while French artist Sophie Calle and Greg Shephard recounted a failed attempt at a lasting relationship in Double-Blind (1992). There was a one-time screening of Continuity (2012) by Omer Fast at the opening event at 8pm which was followed by a conversation with Steve Seid, Video Curator at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The second event was a screening of Double-Blind (1992) by Sophie Calle and Greg Shephard on Wednesday, September 18 at 7pm followed by a conversation with Dore Bowen, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, San Jose State University. The curator, Constance Lewallen was Matrix curator at the University Art Museum, Berkeley (now the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) from 1980 to 88, Senior Curator there from 1998 to 2007, and currently the BAM’s Adjunct Curator. Besides Billingham, the other featured artists were Sophie Calle, Mona Hatoum, Ryan Trecartin, Valérie Mréjen, Chto Delat, Omer Fast and Keren Cytter
| Item Type: | Show/Exhibition |
|---|---|
| Related URLs: | |
| Subjects: | N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR |
| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts |
| Research Priority Areas: | Creative Practice and Theory |
| Depositing User: | Richard Billingham |
| Date Deposited: | 31 Oct 2019 13:50 |
| Last Modified: | 31 Aug 2023 09:23 |
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/7453 |
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