The subject of investigation of Italian filmmaker Anita Sieff is human communication as a means of both social inquiry and visual representation. In her films, fragmented and at times abstract dialogues between diverse characters become the focus of attention as women and men question their relationship with each other in precisely allusive urban contexts. Interpersonal relations become the battling ground where identities are constructed, beliefs debated, and emotions examined.

There is a sense of vulnerability and fragility in the scenarios that Sieff constructs as she explores the deeply human desire to be part of a community which is equated here not only with the public realm but also with the most basic relationship between people, that of love and friendship. Lovers, friends, and strangers gather, confront each other, and retreat into cityscapes that surround them perpetually, becoming characters in their own right. In Sieff’s films, New York and Venice are recurring presences that serve not only as a background but also weigh upon and seemingly overdetermine those emotional exchanges.

Stylistically, Sieff’s work evokes film directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, and Luchino Visconti, but her frame of reference also includes music video clips and soap opera – more popular forms of entertainment disseminated by television. These references are imaginatively employed to create non-linear, utterly discursive, but also playful and witty narratives that captivate and engage the viewers.

This is Sieff’s first solo exhibition in an American museum.

Curators

Carlos Basualdo • Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art
Adelina Vlas • Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

Location

Film and Video Gallery 179, first floor