Holly Zausner – Unsettled Matter

 

7th February 2015 - 7th March 2015

Opening: 6th February 2015, 7-9 pm

 


We are pleased to celebrate the International premiere of Holly Zausner´s new film "Unsettled Matter" on February 06, 2015. In addition, Loock Galerie will present the artist’s new photographs, which are selected photographs from the iconic locations of the film.

The short film "Unsettled Matter" explores ideas about alienation in contemporary society, film history, and different aspects of New York culture. The film is set in a deserted New York City, devoid of people and cars except for the artist as a film noir character.  One woman, Holly Zausner herself, is moving through the city on a mysterious journey. She plays an archetype, an anti-hero wearing a trench coat, dark sunglasses, and a weathered visage that shows no emotion. It is unclear whether the film takes place in the past, future, or present. The locations she moves through are iconic, completely empty except for her: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central Station, Washington Square Park, 5 blocks on Broadway, Chinatown, The Film Forum (while Michelangelo Antonioni’s historic film "L’Avventura" is playing), a bar, a restaurant, a bookstore, a department store, Bergdorf Goodman’s. Why the city is deserted in "Unsettled Matter" is never explained. Unlike many other cinematographic plots, where a disaster, a plague, or terrorism are given as reasons for void and vastness, here the viewer is left with an uncanny feeling of the unknown, and can’t be sure whether the world in the film is real, or a projection of the character’s internal life. The film exists between reality and a dreamscape.

"Unsettled Matter" is shot on an Alexa 4K camera by the well-known Hollywood/NY cinematographer Mott Hupfel.

Generous support for the production of "Unsettled Matter" was given by Mott Hupfel, Mark Potter (Cosmostreet), Studio Mitte Audio, Studio Mitte Video, Alex Bickel (Color Collective, Arri CSC), New York City Mayor’s Office of Film and Television, Antonioni Foundation, Film Forum, Bergdorf Goodman, Grand Central Station, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Strand Bookstore, and Old Town Bar.

 

Holly Zausner was born in New Jersey (USA) and lives in New York and Berlin. She has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the United States, including solo exhibitions at Neue Nationalgalerie and Bode-Museum in Berlin, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart and Sculpture Center, New York. Furthermore, she has been a recipient of the DAAD grant in Germany and of an Artist´s Fellowship of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Sculpture.