This Wednesday, January 6, MOCA is highlighting British artist Phil Collins' video, "Soy Mi Madre "in the exhibition "The Reach of Realism," by creating a special screening time at 7:30 pm so you can watch it from start to finish. The video follows the fomat of a Mexican telenovella with a plotline filled with deceit and drama inspired by Jean Genet's radical play "The Maids." While Collins maintains the class struggle that Genet used to incite his audiences in the 1940s, today the story fits perfectly well in its telenovella structure. Telenovellas are a huge phenomenon and while primarily originating out of Latin America, they have an extensive global reach. Why is it that the telenovella is so popular and why do you think that Collins has created an artwork borrowing its conventions to adapt a play written in the 1940s? We would love your feedback if you already seen the video, and if not, please respond when you check it out on Wednesday.
We wonder about the characters and the actors, while we are made aware that this is all a construction through a few subtle techniques. Yet, we are invited to enjoy the work as an engaging story while thinking critically about it.
Posted by link building services, 06/12/2010 12:32am (1 year ago)
Re. Bill's last comment about the film being impeccably made, I couldn't agree more. Being shot on 16mm film, using Mexico's leading stars, designer Salvador Parra, and Hollywood screenwriters it offers alternative visuals for the daily telenovella viewer. Stripping the essence of low-budget set designs, and awkward camera angles, Soy Mi Madre gives us a reality of the telenovella fit for the big screen. Taking a break from his usual low- budget aesthetic, Colins captures all the major components of the Latin phenomena while lending us his artistic eye to portray social/cultural messages.
Posted by Alex , 07/01/2010 2:43pm (2 years ago)
Thank you for your comment, Bill. I think you hit the nail right on the head. While in approach Soy Mi Madre is fairly different from Collins's other more documentary / ethnographic approaches to video works, the central exploration of different social groups is still the same. In this case, he takes Mexican telenovella stars and invites them to do what they do, act in a dramatic storyline. But we wonder about the characters and the actors, while we are made aware that this is all a construction through a few subtle techniques. Yet, we are invited to enjoy the work as an engaging story while thinking critically about it.
Posted by Ruba Katrib, 07/01/2010 10:08am (2 years ago)
soy mi madre is, like all of phil's work, fun to view and to feel part of another world. his ability to create narratives--even when only suggested by context or pose or music--where the viewer cares about what is happening is stellar and unusual today. even with all his irreverence he makes me care about his material and what he does with it. i cared about the turkish reality show participants, i cared about the kids from palestine (i still wonder where did they go after they left the studio, where are they now). soy mi madre is different--it is so much more self-consciously about watching a narrative, seeing it constructed, watching it unfold/be made. i would love to hear about this format in relation to recent work, how he entered this world of artifice. i love the naturalness of the laughter--my laughter--in this work. unafraid to enjoy art, not to care if it is art...though we do admire it because it is so impeccably made.
Posted by bill, 06/01/2010 12:00pm (2 years ago)
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