EWVA European Women's Video Art
Lili DUJOURIE
Key Works
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Sonnet (1974)
7m 18s
Video
A woman stands up in front of a bay window, walks, turns her back to us, smokes a cigarette, lingers overlooking the view of trees ... She uses a reflection in the window to create a mnemonic trace. The figure weaves the embryo of a story, between surrender to ennui and waiting (for someone who does not arrive?), but the actual aim seems to capture the viewer's interest to the point where the window's mirroring effect can perform its function: here she's beyond the reach of the camera's gaze, but even there she's inaccessible yet present. Sonnet evokes sound, only to deny it. Its literary title sets the tone for a formal appraisal of the work. The expectation of regularity, of density and form that produces meaning is maintained to the extreme brevity of the work combined with its slow pace.
(www.argosarts.org)
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Hommage à... I-V (series) (1972)
Video
Hommage à ... I, 20m 7s, Hommage à … II
18m 31s, Hommage à … III, 37m 2s, Hommage à … IV, 26m 51s, Hommage à … V, 14m 33s.
The five videos of Hommage à … deal with the same theme as repetition-in-difference, as a continual tracing and retracing, of the figure fold and unfold in the visual field.
Hommage à ... I sets the scene. A stationary camera focuses on a divan bed in a minimally interior. The bed occupies the upper half of the screen, a length of floor, the lower. We see a woman, the artist herself, lying on a bed and then before a bed. She moves around on impulse at intervals in real time. She uses her legs, arms, bust, thighs and hips to trace lines on the sheets, giving way to a haptic sensation of space (idea of sculpture). Everything is centred on the concept of self-observation and an exploration of the body. The fragile transition from body to independent object, from the voluptuousness of the body to the elliptical line drawing, is one of the experiences carried out in the Hommage à … series.
(www.argosarts.org)
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Koraal (1978)
6m 23s
Video
Koraal (Coral, 1978) is constructed around the close-up image of fingers slowly peeling an orange, separating the segments of flesh and throwing the fruit’s sections, one by one, off-camera. This concrete action that doesn't represent anything but itself emits a heightened sensuality. The tactile construction and the close-up on the fingers’s dance make us think about an animated sculpture.
(www.argosarts.org)
©2019 European Women's Video Art
