Eija-Liisa Ahtila
THE WIND
October 25, 2006-January 29, 2007
The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery, second floor
LOVE IS A TREASURE
October 25-January 2006
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
Eija-Liisa Ahtila, a Finnish media artist whose works are shown in both cinemas and galleries, investigates the anxieties and emotional uncertainties of women who perceive their environments as alien. The worlds described in Ahtila’s works are those of her subjectsat once familiar and unnatural, they are real rooms and spaces inflected by a strong imagination that slips into fantasy.
Her three-screen, fourteen-minute installation The Wind offers simultaneous perspectives of a single breakdown: a confused and angry young woman invites, in a sense, a strong wind to scatter everything in her apartment. MoMA’s presentation of The Wind is the first exhibition of Ahtila’s media work in a New York museum.
This work also appears as a single-screen episode, one of five, in her 35mm feature-length film Love Is a Treasure, which will have a theatrical run in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters from October 25 through 30, as well as single screenings in November, December, and January.
Rakkaus on aarre (Love Is a Treasure). 2002. Finland. Written and directed by Eija-Liisa Ahtila. With Amira Khalifa, Ulrikka Koskela, Marjaana Kuusniemi. Ahtila portrays the marvelous intersection of fantasy and reality in the lives of five women who slip in and out of the here and now. In Finnish, English subtitles. 55 min.
LOVE IS A TREASURE SCREENING SCHEDULE
Wednesday, October 25, 6:00 and 7:30
Thursday, October 26, 8:00
Friday, October 27, 5:30
Saturday, October 28, 8:30
Sunday, October 29, 6:00
Monday, October 30, 8:30
Single screenings of the film will also take place at various locations throughout the Museum in November, December, and January, for the duration of the gallery exhibition.
Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film.
Love Is a Treasure was acquired through a generous grant from Harvey S. Shipley Miller and The Judith Rothschild Foundation.
The Wind, written and directed by Eija-Liisa Ahtila is produced and copyright owned by Crystal Eye Ltd., Helsinki. The Wind is presented through the courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York & Paris.
MoMA 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019-5497 Tel: (212) 708-9431 www.moma.org