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Daria Martin, film still from Minotaur, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Maureen Paley, London. |
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Daria Martin, Minotaur (2008), Installation view, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Photo: Benoit Pailley, 2009. |
Ai Weiwei's Forays into the Realms of Culture, History, Politics & Tradition |
Daria Martin, film still from Minotaur, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Maureen Paley, London.
Daria Martin, film still from Minotaur, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Maureen Paley, London.
Daria Martin, film still from Minotaur, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Maureen Paley, London. |
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Museum of Contemporary Art Daria Martin’s film Minotaur pays tribute to the work of legendary dancer Anna Halprin, one of the key pioneers of postmodern dance and movement. The film depicts a sensuous duet choreographed by Halprin based on the Auguste Rodin 1886 sculpture Minotaur. The exhibit is on view October 3, 2009 to February 7, 2010. Rodin’s erotic sculpture portrays the part-man, part-bull figure from Greek mythology with a naked young female figure in its grasp. Martin carefully edited the film to juxtapose the movements of the two dancers with close-up views of the sculpture; images of the sculpture in a book; views of the wooded exterior of Halprin's Northern California studio where the dance takes place; and shots of Halprin herself. In doing so, Martin creates a complex and multilayered synthesis of various art forms — film, dance, and sculpture — while simultaneously meditating on the process through which art is made, and the shifting sexual dynamics between men and women as embodied in both the sculpture and Halprin’s performative interpretation. Halprin’s life and work significantly influences Martin’s use of implicit sensuality and a heightened awareness of the body and its relationship to other objects and the surrounding space. Minotaur interweaves highly conceptualized and choreographed physical movement; layered stagecraft; and editing and cinematographic techniques evoking a broad range of both mainstream and experimental filmmaking. Daria Martin was born in 1973 in San Francisco, a few miles away from Anna Halprin’s dance school and studio. She currently lives in London. Most recently, Martin’s work was presented in solo exhibitions at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, the Kunsthalle in Zurich, as well as the Showroom in London. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including “Uncertain States of America,” which originated at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo and traveled internationally; in “Emblematic Display” at the ICA in London; and in the Beck’s “Futures” show, also at the ICA, as well as in “The Moderns” at Castello di Rivoli in Turin, among many others. Her films have been screened in many international venues, including the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, the Royal College of Art, the Vienna Secession, and the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol. The MCA presentation is coordinated by Dominic Molon, MCA Curator.
Daria Martin, film still from Minotaur, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Maureen Paley, London. |
Daria Martin, film still from Minotaur, 2008. Courtesy of the artist and Maureen Paley, London. |
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