Isabell Spengler's exhibition consists of two works - an installation and a video performance - both revolving around the theme of echo. The installation transforms the exhibition space of LAMOA into the home of "Vivianne Echo Starlight", a character from a film by Isabell Spengler and Daniel Adams, shot in France in 2014. The character of Starlight is loosely based on the Greek myth of the nymph Echo, who was condemned to speak only by repeating the words of others. In their film Spengler and Adams envision her as an old actress, who has trouble remembering her glorious days in Hollywood in the 1920's, now that she lives isolated in a tiny hut in the woods of Southern France.
The installation allows viewers to walk through Starlight's chambers, step into her shoes; and to share her perspective on loops, duplication, time-travelling and refractions of light and sound waves.
During the video performance, images of the hut in France are projected onto the LAMOA exhibition structure, merging the two buildings visually. The film sound is created live by Isabell Spengler and Los Angeles based artist Priyanka Ram: Starlight has a surprising comeback in her hometown - Los Angeles.
opening: Sat. April 8th, from 6pm to 9pm
performance by Isabell Spengler & Priyanka Ram at 8pm
exhibition: April 9th - May 20th, 2017
Isabell Spengler is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. Spengler's films are elaborate audio-visual compositions, breaching out and connecting various forms of experimental and queer film and performance practice. Inhabiting a world of self-designed costumes, props, language, logic and time-structure, her fantastic looking protagonists struggle to fit in, appropriate, transform or just live in the real environments they encounter. Since 1998 her films, installations and performances have been presented in exhibitions and festivals worldwide, including most recently at the Berlin International Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montréal, Images Festival Toronto, WNDX Festival Winnipeg, Glasmoog Köln, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen,Museum of Modern Art São Paulo, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, Hammer Museum Los Angeles (upcoming 2017), Trinity Square Video Gallery,Gurevich Fine Art Gallery, Redling Fine Art Gallery, Werkleitz Zentrum für Medienkunst, Halle (Saale), Kunsthalle Exnergasse Wien, Redcat Theater Los Angeles, Pleasure Dome in Toronto, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Experimenta Bangalore and Cine Esquema Novo Festival in Porto Alegre. She studied at the University of Fine Arts Berlin and at the California Institute of the Arts. From 2004 until 2014 she was a lecturer and professor for Experimental Film at the University of Fine Arts Berlin. For her work she received numerous grants and awards; artist residencies in Los Angeles, Tel Aviv and Toronto. www.isabellspengler.net
Priyanka Ram is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Through the study of Western musical scales, ancient Greek modes, Hindustani and Carnatic ragas, Ram creates visual and sound compositions that coax relationships between time, rhythm, astronomy, the body, architecture, and color. These intersections are meant to emphasize the forces that exist within and outside the body and underscore the corporeal in an era that is soaked in the cerebral. She received her degrees in anthropology and advertising from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003 and her MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 2015.www.priyankaram.com
supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe
