Press Release: A•da Ruilova

New Works: 02.3
11.08.02

New Works: 02.3

November 8, 2002 ?nuary 12, 2003

Giuseppe Gabellone Milan, Italy

Juan Miguel Ramos San Antonio, TX

A•da Ruilova New York, New York

Selected by Francesco Bonami

About the Artist

Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, A•da Ruilova currently lives and New York, NY.
Most recently, Ruilova's work has been on exhibition in the project room of White
Columns, Gagosian Gallery, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY;
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City; NY; and the Stedelijk Museum
voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Gent, Belgium. She received her MFA from the
School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. Her work has been reviewed in Flash
Art, Art Monthly, and Artforum.

A•da Ruilova was selected for the 02.3 residency by Francesco Bonami. Francesco
Bonami is the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago, IL, and Director of Visual Arts for the 50th Biennale di Venezia, 2003.

About the Project

A•da Ruilova creates short format videos with ambient sound, working in the
tradition of cinematic montage. Through her editing, she composes scenes of
incomplete action and suspended time that address the ambiguity experienced
between moments of reality and the imagination.

In Ruilova's films and video we are reminded that private experience is filled
with fractured memories. Uneasy interchanges and strange distortions provoke
eerily familiar, dreamlike discomfort. Gothic referents, from Edgar Allen Poe to B
horror movies, are apparent in Ruilova's work, which evinces Eisensteinian filmic
techniques and an evocative quality reminiscent of the films of Russian director
Andrei Tarkovsky.

Like the titles of her other work, Oh No, Beat & Perv,
Hey, and You're pretty, one is anything but comforted by Ruilova's
elusive narratives. The works share references to the global village and its
messages' intrusion on both the political and the personal "self."

Sound is intrinsic to the work as well. A Cageian-analysis of the gaps
between audio and video dispel any doubts that silence, as much as sound, plays
a potent role in Ruilova's work. Real time is purposefully fragmented and
compressed?rt jolts play against stretched-out time. Sound and spoken word
are wedded to uneasy movement as the artist shares some private allegory that
leaves the viewer confused and disconnected. While Ruilova's allusions to
familiar tableaus tease us into making easy assumptions, we are quickly thrown
off balance by the next frame, or a sound, or unsettling text.

During her residency, Ruilova spent time on the South Texas beaches of
Mustang Island. With her handheld camera and the assistance of a Titan Nova
dolly crane?d for feature-length Hollywood films like Woodstock and
TV's Baywatch? artist produced a 58-second video piece. Sampling
visually from the ending of Jean Luc Godard's film Sympathy for the Devil,
Ruilova creates a landscape that is familiar yet forced. Combining the natural
landscape of the beach and the Titan Nova crane as prop, the footage is edited to
create an unnatural private space.

Exhibition Dates

November 8, 2002 ?nuary 12, 2003

Opening Reception

Friday, November 8, 6:30-8:30 PM

Artists' Dialogue

Saturday, November 9, 6:30-8:00 PM

Featuring Giuseppe Gabellone, Juan Miguel Ramos, and A•da Ruilova.
Moderated by Francesco Bonami, Manilow Senior Curator, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, and Director of Visual Arts, 50th Biennale di
Venezia, 2003.

Brown Bag Lunch

Wednesday, January 8, 2003, 12:00-1:00 PM

Join us for a tour of New Works: 02.3 and a brown bag lunch provided by
Pecan Street Deli. Please call ArtPace to make reservations.

Event Locations

All events held at ArtPace, 445 N. Main Avenue. Free parking at Flores Street and
Savings. ArtPace is open to the public Wednesday thru Sunday, 12-5 PM,
Thursday until 8 PM and by appointment. There is no charge for admission.

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org