Transcript of Discussion by Mike Hoolboom available at this link.
Aleesa Cohene & Dani Leventhal in discussion with Brenda Goldstein
Saturday, January 24, 8pm $8/ 5 members.
Presented by Pleasure Dome | www.pdome.org | @ CineCycle, 129 Spadina Ave.
Internal Archivists brings together video artists Aleesa Cohene and Dani Leventhal for a screening of their works and a conversation about their individual practices with artist, writer and curator Brenda Goldstein. The program will feature Cohene’s, widely acclaimed videos Absolutely (2001), Ready to Cope (2006) and Supposed To (2007), and Leventhal’s Draft 9 (2003), Litau (2007) and 3 Parts for Today (2007). The artists will also each screen works by other artists such as Young-Hae Chang’s Cunnilingus in North Korea (2005) and Matthias Müller’s Alpsee (1994).
Aleesa Cohene has been making carefully crafted videos from found footage since 2001, displaying a deft ability to suture disparate samples of 70s and 80s cinematic ephemera into sharp, visually seamless narratives. Her works are audiovisual embroideries that reveal the political gradients and received knowledge accumulated in the collective unconsciousness.
Each of Dani Leventhal’s carefully crafted images are a selected chronicle of her life. Her video collages are part travelogue, part interview and part sketchbook of the artist’s musings. The cast varies: repentant Israeli soldiers, dying birds, goats, cows, family members, windmills, lovers, strangers found in town squares and on commuter trains. Leventhal’s cascading images accumulate like life’s experiences and coalesce to form a personal grand narrative.
Cohene and Leventhal both assemble their work from vast archives of accumulated material. Cohene’s archive is made of found footage, Leventhal’s archive is made of material she has shot herself. Each artist struggles with belief and ideology – together their works map out an uneasy middle ground, illustrating how the personal becomes the political, and how distanced analysis becomes the personal.
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Internal Archivists: Aleesa Cohene & Dani Leventhal
Part 1 – Early documents in the Archive
Absolutely, Aleesa Cohene, 2001, 10:00 video Canada
Draft 9, Dani Leventhal, 2003, 28:00 video USA
Part 2 – Works of others artists available in the archives
Choice of Dani Leventhal:
Cunnilingus in North Korea, Young-Hae Chang Heavy industries, 7:00 web-based video USA/South Korea, http://www.yhchang.com/
Choice of Aleesa Cohene:
Alpsee, Matthias Muller, 15:00 16mm Germany
Part 3 – Recent acquisitions
Litau, Dani Leventhal, 2007, 7:30 video USA
Supposed To, Aleesa Cohene 2007, 7:00 video Canada
3 Parts for Today, Dani Leventhal 2007, 13:00 video USA
Something Better, Aleesa Cohene 2008, 8:00, 3-channel video, Canada
Part 4 – Discussion with Aleesa Cohene and Dani Leventhal in person.
Moderated by Brenda Goldstein.
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Biographies
Dani Leventhal studied sculpture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is currently pursuing a MFA in Film/Video at Bard College. This year, she received the Visual Arts Award from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice and produced a limited edition book and video; “Skim Milk and Soft Wax” at the Women’s Studio Workshop with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation. She lives and works in New York. Dani Leventhal’s website: http://www.danileventhal.com
Since 2001, Toronto-based artist Aleesa Cohene has been producing videos and video installations that seek to occupy the oppositional zone between ideas and emotion, cultural belief and personal integrity. Her work has shown in festivals and galleries across Canada as well as in Brazil, Germany, Holland, Russia, Scandinavia, Turkey, and the United States, and has won prizes at Utrecht’s Impakt Festival and Toronto’s Images Festival. She has participated in artist residencies in Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark. She is currently pursuing a fellowship at the Kunsthochschule für Medien (KHM) in Cologne, Germany. Aleesa Cohene’s Website: http://www.aleesacohene.com/
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