Breda Beban's deeply personal and evocative films confront the emotional complexity of human experience. Walk of Three Chairs shows Beban floating on a raft between two banks of the Danube in Belgrade, believed by some to be the point at which the Balkans end and Europe begins. One bank reveals an industrial landscape whilst the other is populated by trees and traditional wooden dachas (country cottages).
Walk of Three Chairs
19-27 July 2003
Art Now Lightbox at Tate Britain
Breda Beban's deeply personal and evocative films confront the emotional
complexity of human experience. Walk of Three Chairs shows Beban floating on
a raft between two banks of the Danube in Belgrade, believed by some to be
the point at which the Balkans end and Europe begins. One bank reveals an
industrial landscape whilst the other is populated by trees and traditional
wooden dachas (country cottages). The film takes its title from a
traditional Balkan pagan ritual, one that the artist recalls her grandfather
performing after winning at gambling. This precarious yet celebratory act,
performed by Beban against the shifting backdrop, is for her an expression
of 'a complex kind of joy, joy informed by sadness'. This idea of the
bittersweet is encapsulated in the love song Beban attempts to sing as she
travels 'Who Doesn't Know How to Suffer Doesn't Know How to Love'.
Walk of Three Chairs is co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and John
Hansard Gallery. Funded by the National Touring Programme of Arts Council
England.
BREDA BEBAN
Artists' Presentation
Tues 22 July 8.40pm
National Film Theatre
Part of the Artists' Film and Video Season April - July 2003
curated by Film and Video Umbrella
NFT Box Office 020 7928 3232
Ticket prices: £7.50, Concs £5.70
National Film Theatre, South Bank, London
Nearest Tube Stations Waterloo & Embankment
Tate Britain, adjacent to the Manton Entrance
Millbank SW1P 4RG
London