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8 Films | Text | About | Contact
The Russian Project | Cast | Agility drill | The Green Text | Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon | Sensible World | Relative straightness | Solidarity for a metaphysic | New Diagonal Standard run | The Velodrome Project | Spirit & Muscle | Deep & Shallow | Feeling for You | Wherever you are |
Boots
Type C photograph, 100cm x 66cm, 2012
The Russian Project
Installation view, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 2012
Photo credit: Andrew Curtis
Really thinks
Spotlit plinth and diamante singlet top with the slogan ‘Really thinks’ from Chita in Siberia, 2012
Photo credit: Andrew Curtis
Video documentation of Window
Laser print and push pin, air from gallery ventilation system, 21cm x 29cm, 2012
Videography: Andrew Curtis
Chita monument
Still from high definition video
5 min 20 sec, 2012
The Russian Project
The Russian Project featured new photographic, sculptural and video works inspired by Laresa Kosloff’s travels across Russia and Siberia as part of the 2012 Jane Scally Artist Award.The artist videoed a Bolshevik monument in Chita, the remote Siberian town which her ancestors fled and that her great grandfather once presided over as mayor. Items of clothing and footwear were incorporated into several works as a way of exploring individual agency and human presence. The Russian Project addressed various conditions of looking in relation to the aestheticization of politics, and the politics of the everyday.
With special thanks to ACCA and Peter Jopling QC, patron of the Jane Scally Artist Award.
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CAST (with Jennifer Allora, Hany Armanious, Richard Bell, Karla Black, Christian Boltanski, Mikala Dwyer, Dora Garcia, Charles Green & Lyndell Brown, Thomas Hirschhorn, Anastasia Klose, David Noonan, Michael Parekowhai, Grayson Perry, Stuart Ringholt, Renee So, Kathy Temin, Luc Tuymans, Angel Vergara, Catherine de Zegher)
Live performance, ACCA Pop Up Program, 54th Venice Biennale 2011For this performance Kosloff traveled from Melbourne to Venice with her leg in plaster. She attended the Vernissage of the 54th Venice Biennale and asked participating and well-known artists to sign her cast. Kosloff then removed the signed cast and carried it home as a sculptural work.
This project was commissioned by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art through the ACCA Pop Up Program with support by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria.
Click here for ACCA’s blog on this project
CAST (artifact) from Laresa Kosloff on Vimeo
CAST (artifact)
Signed plaster cast, motorized plinth, steel support, perspex
170cm x 55cm x 55cm
Videography: Andrew Curtis
Gifted to the Monash University Collection
The Green Text, live event held at the Partickhill Lawn Bowling Club as part of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, 2012.
The Green Text, live event held at the Natimuk Lawn Bowling Club, Victoria, 2011.
Originally commissioned by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art as part of Art #2.
The Green Text
Collaboration with Andy ThomsonThe Green Text was an event-based artwork held at the Natimuk Lawn Bowling Club in rural Victoria in 2011, and at the Partickhill Lawn Bowling Club in Glasgow in 2012. Kosloff and Thomson created a scripted commentary between two ‘imaginary’ bowling experts, which was recorded and performed by actors. Audience members were invited to listen to this commentary on headphones whilst watching a live tournament of lawn bowls.
The characters in The Green Text discuss a fictional game of bowls whilst digressing through a wide range of topics, observations and musings on art, sport, life and the planets. The live event conflated an unfolding narrative with a recorded narrative, exploring strategies of observation, aestheticisation and framing in art, the metaphysical and poetical concepts of Aristotle, Post-colonial theory, the topic of ‘boredom’, and the social function of sporting events within a local community.
Acting credits: Dr. Lindsey Fisher Price played by Julia Zemiro (Australia) and Kari Corbet (Scotland). Patrick O’Leary played by Santo Cilauro (Australia), Alistair McLeod played by David Mullen (Scotland).
Click here to listen to the Glaswegian version of The Green Text: [mp3 29MB]
Agility drill
Agility drill
High Definition digital video, 16:9 (5 min 45 sec)
2011
Social Sculpture
Curated by Charlotte Day, Anna Schwartz gallery, Sydney, 2011
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Charlotte Day“Laresa Kosloff’s videos record staged actions using amateur performers. They share a particular quality of being out of synch in some way, appearing to be abstracted from real time or routine practices to focus more intently on embodied experiences, often with a comical dimension. In Agility drill (2011) Kosloff brings the performance into the gallery, setting up a series of coloured steel props, which look very like hurdles, at regular intervals down the length of the space. The performance involves Kosloff training someone via a protracted and clumsy process of learning through movement. In matching ‘sports’ outfits that create a doubling of sorts, Kosloff manually moves each of the arms and legs of the performer over the hurdles in a sequence reminiscent of a Buster Keaton sketch. The hurdles remain for the duration of the exhibition, a trace of the activation of the sculpture, while video footage of the performance is reintroduced as a screen-based element. Echoing the early stop-frame photographic sequences of Eadweard Muybridge, Kosloff again fractures movement; she makes us more conscious of the human form in relation to the spaces we inhabit, the way our minds and bodies are required to work in unison, to analyse human interconnectedness and fallibility.”
Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon
Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon:The 4th Auckland Triennial
curated by Natasha Conland
Installation view, Artspace, Auckland 2010. Photo credit: Jennifer French
Works from left to right:
St. Kilda Rd. Super 8 film transferred to DVD (1:56 min) 2010. Digital projection
onto wall (1800mm x 1350mm)
Trapeze, Super 8 film transferred to DVD (0:26 min) 2009. Digital projection
onto suspended Perspex screen (1100mm x 830mm)
Stock Exchange, Super 8 film transferred to DVD (2:20min) 1998. Digital projection
onto freestanding wall (2670mm x 2000mm x 300mm)
Click here for The 4th Auckland Triennial Website: http://www.aucklandtriennial.com/
Sensible world
Sensible world
Installation view, Artspace, Sydney
Digital video projected onto suspended acrylic screens (1200mm x 900mm)
Photo credit: Silversalt 2009
Click here for review: http://www.realtimearts.net/article/91/9491
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the
Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Relative straightness
Painted dowel of varying lengths and thicknesses, inserted through the gallery
wall
Photo credit: Christian Capurro
2008
Relative straightness
Painted dowel of varying lengths and thicknesses, inserted through the gallery
wall
Photo credit: Christian Capurro
2008
Sporty broom & Spondy
mop
Painted broom (acrylic and enamel), and modified Oates Clean mop
Photo credit: Christian Capurro
2008
Solidarity for a metaphysic
A.C.C.A @ Mirka
Curated by Juliana Engberg, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Still image from three-channel video work
(15 min 42 sec)
2008
Solidarity for a metaphysic
This three-channel video work was exhibited at Mirka restaurant at Tolarno Hotel, in Melbourne, 2008. Kosloff filmed a performance from three different perspectives and exhibited this synchronized video footage across three LCD monitors. This slow, relaxed performance is a combination of sporting gestures that lack any clear purpose or outcomes. These movements were performed wearing custom made tracksuits that play upon the effects of weightlessness and levitation.
New Diagonal
Production still: Alex Martinis Roe
Digital video (3 min)
2007
New Diagonal
New Diagonal is a choreographed video work that combines various movements from fast track athletics, aerial skiing, high diving, cycling and yoga. These movements were performed in relation to a three dimensional triangle, which provides physical support for the body throughout the routine. New Diagonal was first exhibited as part of a painted sculptural object, extending Kosloff’s interest in the formal and conceptual dynamics of sport, modern abstraction and minimalist sculpture.
New Diagonal
Plinth, painted dowel sticks, and television monitor
Ocular Lab, Melbourne, 2007
New Diagonal
Plinth, painted dowel sticks, and television
monitor
Ocular Lab, Melbourne, 2007
Installation view: Andrew Curtis
Standard run
Series of still images from video
Super 8 film transferred to video (1 min 36 sec)
2007
Standard Run
Standard Run is an attempt to ‘physically draw’ a method of running. The work extends Kosloff’s exploration of representations of ‘the real’, by manipulating qualities of stillness and action, mimicry, repetition, time, saturated colour and painted backdrops. The work refers to a variety of cultural influences including early representations of movement in photography, sport, slapstick comedy, instructional films, 70s video art, synchronized dance, classical poses and the culture of the ‘trained’ body. Combining and referencing these elements, Standard Run explores culture in relation to nature, the body as a machine, and the ‘objective truth’ of cameras, transforming time, space and its perception into a series of still images.
The Velodrome Project
View from stadium seating
Photo: Bianca Hester
25/11/2006
The Velodrome Project
Collaboration with Alicia Frankovich, 2006The Velodrome Project was a one-day public event held at the Brunswick Cycling Velodrome in Melbourne, 2006. Kosloff and Frankovich made three sculptural works on the velodrome field area; a large black circle painted directly onto the grass, a wooden section of roller coaster (based on the ‘The Big Dipper’ in St. Kilda), and a large, blue stretched canvas (6mt x 4mt), which was held perpendicular by a wooden frame. The audience was invited to view this spectacle as part of a one-day event, which included gymnastic performances by the artists and a ‘sculptural’ performance with a parachute. The Brunswick Cycling Club participated in the event by conducting training sessions throughout the day. The Velodrome Project was viewed from stadium seating, however bike riders were able to circumnavigate the event via the velodrome track. Barbeque sausages and catalogues with an essay by Alex Martinis Roe were available.
Video documentation of The Velodrome Project has been exhibited at Careof gallery in Milan, and as part of Gang Green Artist Garden Party curated by Daniel Du Bern in Wellington, New Zealand. A series of photographic images has also resulted from The Velodrome Project.
The Velodrome Project
View from across field area
Photo: Bianca Hester
25/11/2006
The Velodrome Project
Series of still images from video documentation
Filmed by Alex Martinis Roe
Digital video (5 mins)
2006
Spirit & Muscle
Digital video (4 min 39 sec)
Production still: Christian Capurro
2006
Spirit & Muscle
Spirit & Muscle recalls a range of cultural interests including sport, modern abstraction, dance and cartoons. The work indirectly refers to early Cubist experiments by Picasso, Bauhaus dance performances, and the performing body in early video art. By literally inserting the female body into painted geomteric forms, Spirit & Muscle lightheartedly deconstructs the phallocentric male canon in painting and art history, as well as cultural ideals.
Dizzy pupil
Series of still images from video (1 min)
2006
Dizzy pupil (left) Spirit & Muscle (right)
Digital video projections
New ’06, curated by Juliana Engberg, A.C.C.A, Melbourne, Australia,
2006
Installation view: John Brash
Deep & Shallow
Still images from digital video (4 mins)
2004
Deep & Shallow
Deep & Shallow is a video work that investigates characterization, group dynamics and ritualized behavior. A group of six women wearing garbage bag costumes enact a series of movements and spatial explorations within an all white studio environment. The work pays equal homage to children’s television, fashion advertising and formalism in art.
Deep & Shallow 2004
Dvd on six flat screen monitors
Make it Modern, curated by Juliana Engberg, Deloitte oiffice, Melbourne,
2005
Installation view: John Brash
Make it modern
Curated by Juliana Engberg, Deloitte office, Melbourne, Australia, 2005
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Juliana Engberg“The construction of modernism as a set of abstract, yet tangible shapes can be traced through the twentieth century. But perhaps most vividly, the colour, space and shape experiments of the Bauhaus, in Germany, provided the blueprint for the sturdiest of modernist trajectories. In Melbourne that legacy is all around us: in the primary colours employed by DCM architects, in the stylish swish of Frederick Romberg’s buildings, and in the modernist glass-curtain wall buildings, of which Deloite’s home in the BHP Billiton building, is a most apposite current example.”
“Her video project Deep & Shallow also references the early design and painting experiments of the Bauhaus. Kosloff’s figures – clad in what appears to be black hessian bags that enclose their upper body, but leave their legs naked – arrange themselves around a set of molecular 3D line and dot, square and solid space diagrams. Her figures enact deep and shallow space, in a renovated action of performance painting and theatrical sculpture. The paintings of Surrealist Jean Miro, the theatre costumes of Bauhaus designer Oscar Schlemmer, and drawings of Paul Klee, all seem to be evoked in Kosloff’s playful performance, which in turn refers to the modernist workshop of experimentation.”
Fellow Anthropoid
Curated by Phillip Watkins, CAST gallery, Hobart, Australia, 2005
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Phillip Watkins“The dilemma of the degree to which the formation of identities becomes compromised (through the appeal and response of communication) is in Laresa Kosloff’s Deep & Shallow. The bagged figures that ritualistically enact nonsensical or arcane performances, acquire character and identity through their interaction with one another; a gestural give and take that we as observers read as significant in some way. But for all these distinctions, which increase the more you watch them, the figures themselves are, it seems, a priori anonymous, abstract; all signs of integral difference made void through the masking of face and upper body. Their uniformity, carefully considered by Kosloff, (to the extent that each participant was chosen on the basis that their physique matched that of the artist) rather than suggesting a gagging of individuality, creates a being prior to it, prior to consciousness itself even. Consequently the figures take on the pathos of tragicomic metaphor; a portrait of humanity, physically isolated and vulnerable, yet reassured and defined by the need for social contact and boundaries; they also suggest a denial of the assumed independence of individualism, becoming (particularly in the light of Kosloff’s choice of cast) a multi-faceted self portrait.”
Feeling for You
Still image from animation (2 mins 25 sec)
2002
Feeling for You
This hand-drawn animation is an imaginary self-portrait, in which Kosloff executes a complex dance routine involving break-dance moves. Feeling for You explores the imaginative possibilities of drawing in relation to the temporal and spatial limitations of two-dimensionality.Drawn Out
Curated by Renai Grace, Blindside gallery, Melbourne, 2004
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Renai Grace“The theme of fantasy in relation to the human body is prevalent in Kosloff’s animations. Feeling for You (a self portrait) and Themogenic Muscle Detonator (a collaborative work with Lucy Guerin Dance Company) use stop-frame animation and pop culture sound to create short narratives about the fantasy of dancing the way you want to. Influenced by music video clips, Kosloff has constructed a false reality in which animations are able to physically achieve the unachievable, in humorous, jerky compressed-time movements. Her animations have influenced the choreography of the movements by carrying the formal concerns of drawing through to dance practice; Kosloff links the improvisations and gestures that underpin both drawing and dance by emphasising the way both disciplines rely on movement of the body through space with the principal difference being that in drawing, unlike dance, marks remain behind as an after-trace.
Kosloff treats her drawings as objects as she obsessively cuts out tiny drawings ranging in scale from 1cm high, mounts them in a white void and spot lights them before recording them onto video. Reminiscent of a paper doll, the figure becomes the focus of the work. Not unlike Whiteley’s early drawing series of a figure in the bathroom, Kosloff’s drawings are simple in content and form; they appear to float in an empty white space.
Kosloff has used technology to mediate her presentation of the drawings. At the same time, her works obviously resist technological gimmickry as she strips down the drawing to a linear image and reduces movement of the animation to the barest necessity.”
The Victorian Movie Makers club was an amateur filmmaking group based in Fitzroy, Melbourne, from 1938 – 2001. During its peak popularity the club had 160 members, who made scripted films, documentaries and comedies using 16mm film, Super 8 and early video technology. In 2001 Kosloff met with the remaining members at their final meeting, and was given a box of discarded Super 8 films. She created a triangular screening device for this archival footage, which converted the projected image into moving geometric patterns. Wherever you are… combines ‘pure form’ with personal histories, investigating subjective perceptions of time and space in relation to memory.
Wherever you are…
MDF, mirror, perspex, dvd projection
1250mm x 1440mm x 400mm
Installation view: Christian Capurro
Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, 2003