Live Cinema/Histories in Motion: Jennifer Levonian, Martha Colburn, Joshua Mosley, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, April 30–July 25, 2010

Contemporary artists increasingly employ animation as a medium to examine formal elements of their studio-based practice in narrative contexts that address both personal and communal experiences. Combining paper cut-outs, collages, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures with stop-action techniques and computer technology, animated films are among today’s most innovative forms of artistic production. Histories in Motion presents the work of three young artists who infuse their work with personal reflections on contemporary life and its complex dynamics. Characterized by a critical engagement with the world at large, their films are representative of a generation for whom the moving image and its cinematic qualities have become the prevailing form of expression.

History, as a record of the both distant past and recent events, is made up of innumerable accounts chronicling diverse aspects of human life. Stories become histories—some public, others private; some unfolding quietly, others stridently; some contested, revisited, and at times rewritten, others more easily accepted. The works in Histories in Motion engage with the expanded notion of history and address from individual perspectives particular aspects of our contemporary experience that range from daily interactions to ideological debates. Philadelphia-based artist Jennifer Levonian uses autobiographical details and French New Wave cinema references to create Take Your Picture with a Puma (2010), an intricately textured story set in Mexico. In Join the Freedom Force (2009), a dynamically paced collage of images inspired by street protests around the world, Martha Colburn creates a mesmerizing portrait of society’s current burning issues as expressed in the public realm. Joshua Mosley, also from Philadelphia, focuses on American builder and philanthropist George Brown and Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek in International (2010), folding together a conversation that identifies these historical figures’ views on how a nation’s ideal economic and social order should evolve.

In addition to the films on display in the Video Gallery, this exhibition includes a selection of works on paper, collages, and sculptures related to the making of the animations.

Still from Take Your Picture with a Puma, 2010, by Jennifer Levonian (Courtesy of the artist and Fleisher/Ollman Gallery)