Featured Image

Julie Béna

Miles, 2021
Installation
3 films (Letters from Prague, 10'; Dick’s Wings and Grill, 4'; Miles, 19') and a series of sculptures (metal powder coated and elastics)
Courtesy of the artist

Horses, rocks, a stagecoach, a dead tree, the gallows, a set of metal sculptures drawing a spectral and scorched landscape combine with Letters from Prague, a trilogy of films on the body, its possession, and its constant appropriation by words, love or the gaze of others. In chapter one, Julie Béna embodies the figure of Czech theorist Jindřich Chalupecký to criticize the sexism of the art world. Chapter two is an animation film in which the phallic hero, Dick (a diminutive of Richard, and slang for ‘penis’) navigates a world made of typographic characters. Chapter three is a photographic sequence in which Julie Béna embodies, whispers, shouts or ‘dances’ the violence of possession and alienation of bodies, interlacing personal stories, citations and popular songs such as Quand la ville dort (1987) by French band Niagara.