According to an article this year, Amercians’ top fears include: terrorism, flying and heights. All of these, we can assume, stem from an ultimate fear of physical pain or death. However, there are those whose life experiences include certain hardships or burdens that would cause them to fear something such as abandonment above even the most horrific physical harm. Wisconsin-based artist Kitty Huffman has explored such ides through her video piece, Self Portrait, which is currently on view in the Wisconsin Triennial at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Huffman, who was born and raised in Communist Romania to Hungarian parents, is interested in experiencing and documenting risks of abandonment, as well as humans’ interactions with the natural world. In her performance piece/video, Self Portrait, Kitty has presented herself in a most vulnerable state—naked in the snow amongst a herd of wild deer. The slow-moving video looks almost like a landscape painting, and rightly so—it was inspired by a Hungarian folk tale that takes place in such a setting. After an anxious few moments of eying Huffman horizontal on the cold earth, we see deer begin to wander into the frame. Eventually, an entire herd makes its way into the scene, vaguely aware of the artist’s presence. It is a tense yet distanced interaction in which you get the feeling that Huffman both longs for and fears that the wild animals will approach her. And then something scares the deer off—maybe a sound, or the presence of a person or vehicle out of frame. They spring off and leave Huffman alone once again, left to deal with both the joy of safety and the sadness of abandonment.

Kitty Huffman is a current MFA candidate at School of the Art Institute, Chicago. She earned her BA at University of Wisconsin-Madison and previously studied drama at Babes Bolyai University, Romania before moving to the U.S. Her work has been included in the 4th International Short Film Festival in Germany.

Suki Chan, still from Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk

One person’s bustling metropolis is another person’s claustrophobic nightmare. One person’s tedious, solitary working condition is another’s personal escape and respite. A city as large and as densely populated as London is sure to be brimming with such varied experiences. There are the stories of those who have been there for generations, and of those who are newly arrived—having left stories behind elsewhere in search of a revised life tale. They all come together to make up the fast cars and slow people, the bankers and the bodyguards, the posh and the pained of the city. This urban dichotomy is what interests Hong Kong-born, London-based artist, Suki Chan in her video project Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk, on view through September 4th at New Art Exchange in Nottingham.

The 2-channel high-definition time-lapse video opens on an aerial view of light-trails of commuter cars and trains at twilight, with a science-fiction sounding background of industrial noises and quiet, disjointed narrative. Then it cuts to the dim, unflattering lighting of an empty office building, and the narrative of a Nigerian security guard talking with great pride about his duties on night-watch. He finds freedom in his perch above the city, behind the high rise’s glass shield. The video goes on to explore others’ experiences, capturing “the nuances at play in a city between the solid mass of its architecture and the fleeting movements of its urban inhabitants and the transportation system that revolves around them.” (source) Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk was commissioned by the Film and Video Umbrella. You can view a preview of the video here.

Suki Chan, still from Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk

Suki Chan was born in Hong Kong and lives and works in London. She graduated from Goldsmiths in 1999 and completed an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art in 2008. She has been included in several group shows in the UK, including at David Roberts Art Foundation, London and Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2009, Chan was selected as one of six young British artists by Charles Saatchi to take part in the BBC’s School of Saatchi.

Having just returned from a whirlwind two-week trip in which I covered seven cities within six countries within two continents and two time zones, I am the last person you want to ask what time it is. Or even what day. What’s so exciting about these sort of adventures is precisely that lack of attention to time—save for making sure to catch a train or plane. In our day-to-day lives, time—really schedule—seems to control every single action we take, and we lose the sense of impulse that makes vacation so fun.

This idea of non-linear time has been investigated by artists, writers and musicians (or at least maybe that’s what jazz is about) for years and is currently the source of inspiration for Greek artist Athanasios Argianas. For his current project at National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens, Greece, entitled The Length Of A Strand Of Your Hair, Of The Width Of Your Arms, Unfolded, Argianas has created new work dealing with “memory and the way we process and translate information.” The title piece of the show is an eerie installation consisting of a metal mobile, which hangs in the way of two projection screens, casting a silhouette of itself onto the projections. It is described by the museum as “interrupting” the projection, which recalls the way one’s memories interrupt the present every so often, layering themselves upon your consciousness like shadows on a screen. Sometimes memories—particularly the really good and the really bad—have a way of interrupting life this way, causing us to momentarily lose sense of time and place. Additionally, Argianas’ piece involves the intermittent presence of a silhouetted man walking across the projection screen, reading aloud from a text, which is “key for understanding the work.” The Length Of A Strand Of Your Hair, Of The Width Of Your Arms, Unfolded runs through September 5, 2010.

Athanasios Argianas was born in Athens, Greece and currently lives and works in London. He earned his MA at Goldsmiths College, London. He has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally, including at: The Breeder (Athens), La Chambre, Xippas, (Paris), Faye Fleming & Partner (Geneva), The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion (London). He was selected to participate in Heaven the 2nd Athens Biennial (Athens), and was shortlisted for the 2009 Deste Prize.

Resistance, 2006; Courtesy the artist; Courtesy gb agency, Paris; Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna; Johnen Galerie, Berlin

The work of Slovakian artist Roman Ondák has been referred to as “intervention,” a label which makes reference to the way a piece confronts the viewer with an unexpected experience. Ondák, who is currently participating in the Berlin Biennale through August 8, 2010, creates work that is at once mischievous, hilarious and stone serious. He deals with social issues of both the grand and trivial scales and swaddles participants—whether knowingly or not—inside the folds of each performance. In the manner of a social scientist, he is wont to stage “temporary situations and imaginative sitespecific constructions that predict various communication patterns in behavior and in the perception of things.” (source) In his 2009 presentation of Measuring the Universe (2007) at Museum of Modern Art in New York, Ondák urged museum visitors to mark their height and first name on a white wall—the same way a child might over the years in a hallway at home—until the thousands of black ink markings became as visually dense as they were socially significant.

In Loop, his installation for the Slovakian Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale, he brought the lush grounds of the Giardini Publici into the interior pavilion, causing guests to take pause before realizing that the artist’s installation was in fact the well-ordered plant-life which surrounded them. His 2006 video Resistance, originally staged during an opening at Viennese Museum of Modern Art, plays with ideas of social status by following the feet of a group of guests with untied shoelaces. As reported by Kontakt, the Art Collection of Erste Group (whose artists were being presented in the exhibition during which Resistance was staged), “Fellow visitors were puzzled by this intervention, since there was no direct clue as to why certain people were posing this way. Thus Ondák queries the bondage, not necessarily visible, of certain peer groups, in this case through the need of people working in the field of art to proclaim otherness as a means counterbalancing social standardization.” (source)

Loop, 2009; Courtesy the artist; Courtesy gb agency, Paris; Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna; Johnen Galerie, Berlin

Roman Ondák was born in 1966 in Zilina, Slovakia and now lives in Bratislava. He was recently included in I’m Not Here. An Exhibition Without Francis Alÿs at De Appel, Amsterdam—a “solo exhibition that takes the form of a group exhibition in which works by the contributing artists evoke the atmosphere of the work of an absent Francis Alÿs.” He has been included in numerous solo presentations internationally, including at MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; 2009 Venice Biennale; and 2008 Shanghai Biennale.

I've Been Shot, installation view, courtesy XPACE Cultural Centre

In the 1988 action film, Die Hard, John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) hustles around a Los Angeles skyscraper—sweat-soaked and shirtless—in an effort to save his wife and other hostages from a ruthless terrorist group. At various points throughout the film, McClane (an NYPD officer) survives a partial jump from an exploding building and smashes through a plate glass window. Basically, he is injured to the extent that he arguably would not be able to still perform such heroics as he does (saving everyone in the end) if this were real life. But this is not real life, it’s Hollywood. And so the hero always perseveres.

The themes of personal danger, machismo and pain have been explored by artists in the past, namely Southern California performance artist Chris Burden. Burden is perhaps best known for his 1971 piece, Shoot, in which he had a friend shoot him in the left arm from a distance of about fifteen feet. Shoot, and the many other performances by Burden throughout that era (during which he crawled over broken glass, spent weeks on a high-up gallery platform with almost no food and no human interaction, and was nailed through the hands to a Volkswagen) prompted serious discussion around the subjects of fear, war (Vietnam), consumerism and the role of art in society. While there is no shortage of people who considered Burden insane at the time, many continue to consider his work monumental. (Incidentally, if you’re interested in reading more about Burden’s work, I recommend this particularly well-rounded New Yorker essay by Peter Schjeldahl.) What if, however, an artist were to take a more humorous–and admittedly less painful—approach to the same overall theme? Enter Toronto-based artist, Robert Lendrum.

I've Been Shot, installation view, courtesy XPACE Cultural Centre

Lendrum’s I’ve Been Shot consists of a looping video in which a man grasps his bloody chest and crawls in pain toward a red phone to call help after having been shot. Just as he reaches his goal and goes to lift the phone, the video loops back to the beginning where he enters the frame, grasps his chest, exclaims that he’s been shot, and drags his body toward the phone. And it goes on and on. In his statement about the piece, the artist says, “This humorous re-articulation of the Sisyphean myth…satirizes machismo in both the art world and Hollywood films.” I’ve Been Shot does well to continue the dialog that Burden once started, and at the same time consider the extremism of Burden’s approach, but it can easily be argued that the younger artist’s work is just as reactionary and extreme (albeit in a different way) than that of his predecessor.

Robert Lendrum is currently included in the group exhibition, THIS IS UNCOMFORTABLE, at Gallery TPW in Toronto, Ontario. He earned his BFA in Visual Arts and English at University of Western Ontario; his MA in Media Studies at Concordia University, Montreal; and his MFA in Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto. He has been included in solo and group exhibitions all over Canada and in the U.S., including at: Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto, ON; University of Colorado New Visual Arts Complex, Boulder, CO; and Spark Contemporary Art Space, Syracuse, NY.

Annelle's Cornbread (Marks, Mississippi), 2006. Courtesy the artist and Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles.

I’m a sucker for a storyline involving a protagonist’s search for identity across generations and distant lands. More often than not this fascination is satisfied by reading a novel or watching a film, maybe listening to a three-verse country song. It’s not often that such a sprawling narrative emerges from within a work of art, but such is the case with the series of photographs by San Francisco-based artist Danielle Nelson Mourning in her debut solo exhibition at Taylor De Cordoba Gallery in Culver City.

Homecoming presents large-scale ink jet prints of the artist’s pilgrimage across the country and the Atlantic to understand herself and her ancestry. This is no documentary, though; Mourning has visited old family homes in Marks, Mississippi and Niagara Falls, New York to make self-portraits in which the self is more fictional than real. She assumes the dress and style of domestic women from decades past, recalling in part Cindy Sherman’s Complete Untitled Film Stills, though in a decidedly less aggressive way. Mourning goes to Ireland as well to recreate haunting scenes of life during the potato famine of 1845. The work is endearing in its earnest investigation of family history and self, and in its multidimensional presentation of women of certain eras and of domestic life. It seems to be an intensely personal practice, as if the project would mean as much to the artist regardless of whether it had an audience. Sometimes work comes across as so prepared for an audience that there is a paucity of the artist’s own identity, but there’s none of that here.

Rhubarb (Cavan County, Ireland), 2006. Courtesy the artist and Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles.

The most affecting work in the show is the 8mm film, Memories from a Pleasant Visit, which mimics vintage 8mm home movies authentically with its camera shake, jumpy scene cuts and film noise. In it, the characters from Mourning’s Mississippi and Niagara Falls photo narratives are brought to life, though there is still a sense of disconnect between the intent of the characters as they move about, and any narrative that the viewer should draw from the quick scenes. Perhaps the film is the least narrative piece in the show because its presentation of ideas is so hectic, like scraps from the reel of life lying in disjointed piles on the cutting room floor of one’s mind. I actually wonder if I’ve ever been more taken with a work of video art, however. Maybe I relate to each of these divergent female characters, respond to grandma’s chatter as she flips through old photo albums, and possibly—most of all—enjoy the private thrill of being frightened by the subtle Hitchcockian tones of the film. The dull tapping of ivory keys, the lone voice of a choir girl singing, the black-and-white footage capturing the manic twirling of a woman in a gown—it’s chilling. But more so, it’s entrancing.

Paten Circle II (Marks, Mississippi), 2006. Courtesy the artist and Taylor De Cordoba, Los Angeles.

Danielle Nelson Mourning lives in San Francisco, CA. She earned her MFA at Royal College of Art, London. Her work has been included in several group exhibitions, including at Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito; Hoopers Gallery, London; and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Prague. Homecoming closes today, June 26. The film Memories from a Pleasant Visit can also be viewed at this link.

Jessica Hilltout; Domingos Ball, Mozambique; Chicome, Mozambique; from Amen series

Contemporary art, with it’s postmodern penchant for theory-riddled subtext and quirky aesthetics, doesn’t often fall under the category of “feel good” entertainment. That’s not a degradation, it’s a generalization by someone who looks at a lot of contemporary art. And nobody ever said that the role of art is solely to make the viewer feel good. However, when one comes across a series of work that is both visually and intellectually compelling, as well as inspiring, one takes notice. Perhaps one (that would be me) is even seeking it out on a subconscious level. Humans and their pesky yearning to be inspired. We seek this kind of joy and inspiration in other forms of art and entertainment as well, including: film, literature and sports. And in the case of sporting events, I can think of no better example of people coming together from around the world to be inspired and compelled than the FIFA (Soccer) World Cup. Sure, the Olympics draws upon that enthusiasm and serves up its share of inspiration every four years as well, but not like the World Cup. These fans are dedicated; they know the game, they follow the teams and players 365 days a year, every year. They play the game themselves.

Jessica Hilltout; petit-poto, Burkina Faso; James Town, Accra; from Amen series

As the 2010 World Cup kicks off its first full week in South Africa, the culmination of joy and inspiration seems even more heightened in comparison to previous years. Its host country is a historical nerve center for racial strife, social tension and high crime, with a rapidly increasing rate of disease, including HIV/AIDS. It is also a “model of racial reconciliation following decades of apartheid, with a burgeoning black middle class” (source). And, as often happens when a country finds itself climbing out of the trenches of tragedy, an event such as the World Cup—or even a simple pickup game of soccer—acts as a natural binding agent, suffusing hope far beyond the reach of sports enthusiasm. I should note that, certainly, not everyone takes such an optimistic view of the World Cup in South Africa, and of course my view is that of an outsider in any case; an observation more than an opinion. But by in large, the World Cup and the game of soccer (er, football) are inspiring a nation and a world at the moment.

Jessica Hilltout; Orlando, Chicome; Michael Sarkodie, Ghana; from Amen series

But what if the grandiose spectacle of the World Cup is removed from the sport? Will a nation—a continent—still be inspired by the game? In a new solo exhibition at Joao Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa, Belgian photographer Jessica Hilltout presents a series of work entitled Amen, capturing images of rural football players from all over Africa. Equally inspiring to the aforementioned global match, the matches played by the rural footballers offer none of the World Cup’s fanfare. Their equipment is makeshift, their pitches (fields) are crude. There are no Nike logos or Gatorade sponsorships. But the essence of joy—of hard work, inspiration and coming together around a game—translates the same. As the artist says, “Amen, above all else, captures the strength of the human spirit.”

Jessica Hilltout; Demble, Ivory Coast; Unknown, Bukina Faso; from Amen series

Born in Belgium, Jessica Hilltout has had a nomadic that has taken her across Europe, Asia and Africa. She earned her BA in Photography at Blackpool College of Art, UK. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at The National Portrait Gallery, London and Aliceday Gallery, Brussels.