Exhibition
Nicole Miller
Organized in conjunction with Whitechapel Gallery, London, Ballroom Marfa is pleased to present the sixth season of Artists’ Film International, a program that showcases international artists working in film and animation. This year in the north and south galleries Ballroom Marfa will feature two video works, David (2012) and Death of a School (2014), by Los Angeles-based artist Nicole Miller.
Miller’s videos explore self-representation and self-presentation in narrative form as a tool for the reconstitution of both physical and psychic manifestations of loss. In David, a man re-tells the story of losing his arm in a brutal act of random violence while concurrently re-generating his phantom limb through exercises performed in front of a mirror. Interspersed throughout the two galleries, the four-channel work Death of a School is a predominantly silent and languid meditation on a soon to be shut-down school in Miller’s hometown of Tucson, Arizona where the artist’s mother taught for the majority of her life. Presented together, the videos embrace malleable identity as a function of the story we construct about ourselves as subject or artist—one in which representation not only mediates knowledge through fragmentation and negation but constructs it as well.
Additionally, each of the 12 participating institutions has selected one artist from their region whose works will be screened as part of the international AFI program. Ballroom Marfa’s center gallery has been transformed into an interactive screening room for the viewing of the entire selection of works for the duration of the exhibition.
Artists' Film International
Organized in conjunction with Whitechapel Gallery, London, AFI is a program that showcases international artists working in film, video and animation.
Each international venue that participates in AFI nominates a moving image work from an artist who lives and works in their country. The 2014 AFI institutions are:
CCAA / Centre for Contemporary Art Afghanistan
Ballroom Marfa, USA
Belgrade Cultural Centre, Serbia
Cinémathèque de Tanger, Morocco
City Gallery Kfar Saba, Israel
City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand
Fundación PRóA, Argentina
GAMeC / Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contamporanea di Bergamo, Italy
Hanoi DOCLAB, Vietnam
KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film, Norway
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k), Germany
Para/Site, China
Project 88, India
Tromsø Kunstforening, Norway
NCCA / National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Russia
Whitechapel Gallery, UK
City Gallery Kfar Saba, Israel
City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand
Fundación PRóA, Argentina
GAMeC / Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contamporanea di Bergamo, Italy
Hanoi DOCLAB, Vietnam
KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film, Norway
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k), Germany
Para/Site, China
Project 88, India
Tromsø Kunstforening, Norway
NCCA / National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Russia
Whitechapel Gallery, UK
Artist Profile
Nicole Miller (b. 1982; Tucson, Arizona) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo shows include Believing is Seeing (LACMA), Death of a School (Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneve); The Conductor (LAXART) and Daggering (HMAAC). Nicole Miller has also participated in collective exhibitions such as Made in L.A: Los Angeles Biennial, Dallas Biennale and The Bearden Project (Studio Museum in Harlem).
Acknowledgments
This program has been made possible by the generous support of the Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston; Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Ballroom Marfa members.
In-kind support provided by Big Bend Brewing Company.
Special thanks to the Big Bend Sentinel, Laura Copelin, Cory Lovell, Irene O’Leary, Marfa Public Radio, Rosa McElheny, Alexander Mills, Francisco Rosas, Brooke Stroud, and Sam Winks.
Installation Images
