Becky Slemmons: Memorial



This piece is best documented by video: https://vimeo.com/305260667

(Please click the blue link. Thank you.)










Призрак (ghost)

Images:
Knotted horsehair and fishing line
7 feet height, floor to top of piece x 5 ft. width x 34 inches  depth
   (table surface is 30 inches up from floor, so the horsehair portion is 54 inches height)
The sketch (prototype) of this installation, depicted in my portfolio, was created in December 2018.


This installation memorializes the horse that was killed during the making of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Audrei Rubley.

Horsehair Installation
This piece memorializes the horse that was killed- stabbed and sent stumbling down a staircase-during the making of Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rubley. This horse was purchased from a gule factory for this purpose, and returned to the same establishment after. Needless to say, knowing this provokes a personal reaction of horror and I can hardly watch the scene. But ponder this. If you or I were a horse at the inescapable end of life, would we prefer to die in a Tarkovsky film or in a glue factory? The time I spent knotting the coarse black hair of this installation offers time to ruminate maybe similar to the purpose of the act of creating Victorian hair wreaths of deceased loved ones.

While taking in this piece, the weightless forms shifts with the movements of the viewers’ eyes. This and the overall shape of the installation references both a slow-motion tumble down a staircase and also an upward-floating spirit.

This piece is best documented by video  https://vimeo.com/305260667


Bio
Through her art, Becky Slemmons searches for truths that are common throughout multiple cultures. She works in the disciplines of drawing, painting, video, performance, fiber, glass, sounds, and book arts. Her education includes an MFA from MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), Mt. Royal School of Art, and a BFA from the University of Michigan. Becky has shown her work in Berlin, Germany; Seoul, South Korea; New York; Brooklyn, NY; Portland, OR; Baltimore, MD; Washington D.C.; and Pittsburgh, PA. She has spoken about her work at the Andy Warhol Museum. Slemmons was awarded a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Grant, a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Collaborative Fellowship Residency and a Heinz endowment to attend VCCA residency. She has served tow artist residencies in Germany and in Estonia, among others in the US. Slemmons has collaborated with choreographers and dancers. She also assistant-directed “Find Our Wings”, a community video documentary project, serving six at-risk teenage African-American girls in Baltimore. She currently is an adjunct professor at University of Pittsburgh, instruct in the summer and Carnegie Mellon University, and previously adjuncted at MICA. She lives and works in Pittsburgh.



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