Rosalind Nashashibi
Bachelor Machines Part I
August 26 through November 3, 2007
University of California
Berkeley Art Museum and
Pacific Film Archive
2626 Bancroft Way
Berkeley CA 94720
The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) presents Rosalind Nashashibi: Bachelor Machines Part I, a film installation that chronicles the voyage of the cargo vessel Gran Bretagna and its crew as they venture from Italy to the Baltic Sea. The exhibition, which is part of BAM/PF’s MATRIX Program for Contemporary Art, opens at the museum on August 26 and runs through November 3, 2007. Nashashibi will appear in person to discuss the film on
October 4, 2007, at 6 p.m.
Artist Rosalind Nashashibi has garnered international attention for creating films that concentrate on the incidental details of everyday life. In Bachelor Machines Part I (2007), she uses a contemplative series of images to tell the story of the captain and crew of a large ocean-going cargo ship. The men speak, but not in English, so their story is subtly revealed to the viewer through facial expressions and bodily cues as they go about their work and recreation. Along with the men, the sea, with its eternity of lapping waves, and the vessel itself become characters in the film. This relationship of men, ships, and sea recalls the timeless mythology of seafaring in literature and painting, but it also connects back to the present-day context. Far from our expected images of accelerated commerce in an ever-shrinking world, and our jet-fueled notions of the global economy, Bachelor Machines Part I reminds us that most goods are still transported across the globe on slow, hulking machines operated by ordinary people. Although Nashashibi’s films have a narrative structure and feature real people, they are not documentaries in the usual sense. Referencing avant-garde structuralist film, she shoots on 16mm, and uses long, sustained takes and often static camera angles to present, as she says, “a particular way of seeing things.” Past works have focused on a group of model-airplane enthusiasts flying their toys in Omaha, Nebraska (Midwest: Field, 2002); old women having lunch at a Salvation Army (Blood and Fire, 2003); and a family of Palestinians living in Israel, chatting as they prepare a meal (Hreash Housing, 2004). (Nashashibi herself is of part Palestinian and part Irish descent.)
Nashashibi was born in 1973 and lives and works in London. Her work has been shown in exhibitions internationally, including the ICA in London, the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Momentum 2006: Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, and the Scottish Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Solo presentations of her work have been mounted at Tate Britain, London; Art and Industry Biennial, Christchurch, New Zealand; Kunsthalle Basel; and Chisenhale Gallery, London, for which Bachelor Machines was originally commissioned. In 2003 she was the first woman to win the prestigious Beck’s Futures Award for young British artists.
Rosalind Nashashibi: Bachelor Machines Part I is curated by Elizabeth Thomas, Phyllis Wattis MATRIX curator. Bachelor Machines Part 1 was originally commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London, and Picture This, Bristol.
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley CA 94720
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday and Friday to Sunday, 11 to 5; Thursday 11 to 7.
Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Information:
t. (510) 642-0808
f. (510) 642-4889
TDD: (510) 642-8734
Press contact
Rod Macneil rmacneil@berkeley.edu
