Team will present an exhibition of new work by Maria Marshall from the 17th of March through the 14th of April 2001. Team is located at 527 West 26th Street, cross streets Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, on the ground floor.
During 2000, London-based artist Maria Marshall had seven solo shows and participated in several large-scale international museum exhibitions. Marshall has exhibited her work in Paris, Prague, Chicago, San Francisco, Istanbul, Brussels, Boston, Los Angeles and London, among others. Since her debut at Team in October of 1998 — a short two and one-half years ago — public institutions in Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Switzerland and Austria have included her digital projections in high-visibility theme shows. Her work continues to be in great demand.
Marshall’s new works again mine the dark psychological space accessible only through the manipulations of the medium of film. Here she presents three projections — two originally shot on super 16mm and one whose camera original is 35mm — one almost within a Classical Marshall mode; the other two radical departures in terms of technique and content.
The show’s centerpiece is entitled When are we there? For this film, the most disturbing work in the show — quite possibly the most disturbing work of her career — Maria places herself in front of the camera. Frozen in a Kubrick-like interior of wealth and power, the artist stands motionless as the camera pans over her body. As we watch the camera watch, her flesh is disturbed as though our gaze itself was bruising her body, rippling her veins and grabbing her throat. The six-minute loop repeats three passes of the same footage, during each pass, however, the special effects change in intensity, leading the viewer to question their own vision.
Theresa’s Story is structurally quite simple. The artist’s son told his mother a story, which he claimed to have heard that day from a teacher. Marshall was intrigued by the element of performance in the boy’s retelling of this narrative and arranged to film him. As presented, Theresa’s Story shows us two views of the boy, facing forward and in profile, telling the same story on different days. His elaborations relate to each other creating an intertext with the density of a puzzle. As both tales are shown side by side, the additions and subtractions from the first telling to the second, make very clear the role of acting in the oral delivery of stories. The artist’s investigative process has yielded a glimpse of real life’s inherent fiction.
In President Bill Clinton, Memphis, November 13, 1993, Marshall presents her two sons, Jacob and Raphael in a sumptuous sun filled-interior. Diffused light streams trough a large window completing an image of material comfort and well being. In this room, in stop-motion, we see the boys endlessly unwrapping gifts. The narration, read haltingly by Marshall’s four-year old, is a fragment from a Clinton speech ostensibly about Martin Luther King's legacy. By wrenching the text from the adult professional and placing it in the mouth of a youngster, Marshall gets at the emotive center of Clinton’s speech with alarming force. The boys asks, “Who will be there to take care of these children?” as we witness an endless stream of consumption.
This is Marshall’s third exhibition at Team. For further information and/or photographs, please call 212.279.9219. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am to 6pm.