- 3
Taus Makhacheva
bidding is closed
Description
- Taus Makhacheva
- Walk
- single-channel high-definition colour video for monitor, without sound on looped Blu-ray Disc (3 minutes, 1 second)
- dimensions variable
- Executed in 2010, this work is number 1 from an edition of 3, plus 1 artist's proof and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
Provenance
Collection of the Artist
Exhibited
Vladikavkaz, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Alanica Symposium Exhibition, 2011
Moscow, Gallery 21, Landscape Painted by Gaze, 2011-2012, p. 4, illustrated in colour
Moscow, Gallery 21, Landscape Painted by Gaze, 2011-2012, p. 4, illustrated in colour
Catalogue Note
Taus Makhacheva, who works between Moscow, London and Makhachkala, was born in Dagestan, one of Russia's federal entities located in the North Caucasus. Increasingly popular for her performance and video art, Makhacheva's works explore issues of identity, history, geography and their reciprocal relationships. Juxtaposing archival material with documentation of current socio-anthropological research, her video works, such as I Want to be Part of a Narrative and Gamsutl (both 2012), yield new perspectives on existing historical narratives and the degree of subjectivity inherent in the construction of collective memory.
Walk (2010), is an extension of Makhacheva's performance art, where the artist uses her own body to question an array of issues of self-identification with both external and internal factors, from historic traditions and social standing, to gender and basic animal instincts. In this piece the artist sets herself against the vastness of nature. The viewer is presented with the grandiose scenery of a canyon filmed in her native Dagestan. The stillness of the rocks at first distracts from the moving image nature of the medium evoking 19th century landscape painting. The emergence of the artist's tiny figure from the side of the frame, walking evenly across the flat mountain top, catches the attention of the viewer as we slowly follow the artist move out of the frame, only to reappear again on the other side. The ironic loop, along with the miniscule size of the subject, establishes a surprisingly intimate connection with the viewer that overcomes the seeming immensity of the natural barriers separating the two. Thus, what at first sight appears as an outwardly obvious and romanticised rendering of nature coupled with great narratives of man’s insignificance in its presence is subtly subverted to give place to the immediacy of human presence in the mere act of walking.
Taus Makhacheva was shortlisted for the Kandinsky Art Prize in 2011 and in 2012 won the prestigious Innovation Art Prize in the 'New Generation' category. Walk (2010) won Second Prize in the Now & After International Video Art Festival, held at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in 2011.
Walk (2010), is an extension of Makhacheva's performance art, where the artist uses her own body to question an array of issues of self-identification with both external and internal factors, from historic traditions and social standing, to gender and basic animal instincts. In this piece the artist sets herself against the vastness of nature. The viewer is presented with the grandiose scenery of a canyon filmed in her native Dagestan. The stillness of the rocks at first distracts from the moving image nature of the medium evoking 19th century landscape painting. The emergence of the artist's tiny figure from the side of the frame, walking evenly across the flat mountain top, catches the attention of the viewer as we slowly follow the artist move out of the frame, only to reappear again on the other side. The ironic loop, along with the miniscule size of the subject, establishes a surprisingly intimate connection with the viewer that overcomes the seeming immensity of the natural barriers separating the two. Thus, what at first sight appears as an outwardly obvious and romanticised rendering of nature coupled with great narratives of man’s insignificance in its presence is subtly subverted to give place to the immediacy of human presence in the mere act of walking.
Taus Makhacheva was shortlisted for the Kandinsky Art Prize in 2011 and in 2012 won the prestigious Innovation Art Prize in the 'New Generation' category. Walk (2010) won Second Prize in the Now & After International Video Art Festival, held at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in 2011.