Press for Ladies and boys and touching:
Selections from recent shows
curated and introduced by Astria Suparak
for Video Mundi at The Chicago Cultural Center

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THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN:
"*Astria Suparak, the prolific young curator from New York, presents a collection of selections from her recent programs in Ladies and Boys and Touching, originally created for the Chicago Cultural Center. The title is perhaps the best way to describe this collection of self-conscious performances. Ladies, boys, and tactile movement run through these works, which celebrate the artifice of art, relationships, and actions: a man savagely cuts down a public rose garden then stomps on every pile of dog shit he can see [Messieurs Delmotte]; another rhapsodizes about Reagan as he chops wood [Seth Price's Triumf]; a woman discusses death with phone psychics [Kathy High's Domestic Vigilancia]. The program, which includes audio works by Miranda July, also features Jennifer Sullivan's Dancing Girls, an electronica tribute to girls in '80s talent shows. Those who saw Suparak's summer program at Ladyfest Bay Area will recognize Karen Yasinsky's stop-motion Fear and Jaqueline Goss's Digit and Dian." -Laurie Koh

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THE CHICAGO READER:
Ladies and Boys and Touching
"New York curator Astria Suparak describes the creation of these shorts as "practicing our (dance) moves until perfection is reached," and most of these 11 videos (and two audio works) focus on the body as an instrument. Among the best are Alex Villar's Upward Mobility and Jennifer Sullivan's Dancing Girls, both from 2002: in the first a man climbs brick walls and building facades just as a skateboarder might interact with urban spaces, exploring locales with minimal means, and the second shows young girls dancing in the 80s. The opening dancer does a mechanical routine whose rote movements and facial expressions betray her unease, and some later ones look unhappy too, as if dancing for pushy parents. An amusing untitled piece (2001) by Zakery Weiss parodies the pretentiousness of artists' statements with a rolling title about Weiss's search for "higher truth -- in the truest sense possible." ...Humane Restraint (2002), in which video maker Ann Weathersby buries a woman up to her neck in sand; the neosurrealist conceit recalls 1960s art films...
Presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, this six-day festival of experimental film and video runs Tuesday, March 4, through Sunday, March 9. Screenings this week are at the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Washington, Chicago, and admission is free." --Fred Camper

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THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
Screen Gems: Avant garde gets its due at Video Mundi
"Except for an occasional program at Chicago Filmmakers, a one-night stand at Siskel Film Center, or the rare show at a local art museum, experimental film screenings are hard to come by in Chicago. But avant-garde aficionados have something to cheer about this week with "Video Mundi," an ambitious four-day, eight-program mini-fest that reminds us just how challenging (and disturbing) non-narrative film and videomaking can be.
...At the Chicago Cultural Center, "Video Mundi" is a pastiche of formats and visual styles that seeks to open audiences to alternative ways of seeing through the lens of avant garde. Festival organizers asked eight international curators to pull together a separate thematic program of films and tapes, then invited those curators to Chicago to introduce the works they gathered and discuss the content and meaning. Included on the list of invitees are: Ximena Cuevas, Astria Suparak, Elena de la Vara, Andrea Grover, Jan Schuijren, Alex MacKenzie, Ulrich Wegenast and Abina Manning. These may not be household names, but in the esoteric world of experimental film, they have earned their props...
Ladies and boys and touching, zeroes in on issues of love and art, featuring a dialogue between a man and a woman buried up to her neck in the sand [Ann Weathersby's Humane Restraint], and a faux logger who speaks with rehearsed passion about ex-president Ronald Reagan [Seth Price's Triumf].

...Though I was not able to preview all of the programs, of the six I saw, each had a high batting average. Even some of those I didn't care for stayed with me for hours and even days afterward. Isn't that what alternative art is supposed to do?" -John Petrakis, Feb. 28, 2003