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DVD Review: Our City Dreams: Nancy Spero, Marina Abramovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer, Swoon, Chiara Clemente: Movies & TV

Review
Not only a first-rate portrait of great artists but also an impressive look at the way they interact with the city that feeds their work. –New York Magazine

Product Description
This "lyrical documentary about the intersection of location and imagination" (New York Times) is an invitation to visit the creative spaces of five women artists, each of whom possesses her own energy, drive and passion. These artists, who span different decades and represent diverse cultures, have one thing in common beyond making art: the city to which they have journeyed and now call home– New York.

The artists profiled are Nancy Spero, who was at the forefront of the feminist movement of the late 50s and 60s and whose work continues to question the polemics of sexual identity and warfare; Marina Abramovic, a pioneer of performance art who uses her own body as a canvas to respond deeply to contemporary cultural issues; Kiki Smith, who addresses philosophical, social and spiritual aspects of the human body through work that incorporates glass, plaster, ceramic, bronze and paper; Ghada Amer, who paints erotic canvases in traditional needle and thread and who refuses to bow to the puritanical elements of Western and Islamic culture and "institutionalized feminism"; and Swoon, one of New York’s most promising emerging artists, whose arresting and fugitive street art transmits the pulse of urban life. Director Chiara Clemente combines an intimate style of documentary filmmaking with the ephemera of city life surrounding each woman and the work she creates.

The documented year held many triumphs and challenges for each of the participating artists, and the audience will catch a glimpse into the processes of creation and inspiration. Chiara Clemente has captured many moments in these artists’s lives, including Swoon’s first solo exhibition at Deitch Projects in New York, Ghada Amer’s return to her Egyptian homeland, Kiki Smith’s traveling retrospective, Marina Abramovic’s weeklong series of performances at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Nancy Spero’s preparations of a new piece for the 2007 Venice Biennale. Stylistically, the film will have the feeling of a textured collage that will be the culmination of the director’s collaboration with the artist. Ultimately, Our City Dreams intends to bring a unique cultural and artistic experience to viewers and provide a testimony to the need to preserve great art and artists.

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One City and Five Female Artists,

By Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
  

  

“Our City Dreams”

One City and Five Female Artists

Amos Lassen

First Run Features brings us a documentary that shows where location and imagination come together. New York City is where Maria Abramovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer, Swoon and Nancy Spero call home. Each woman is at a different stage in her life and they all come from different diverse backgrounds. Yet they have one thing in common–New York, the city of their inspiration.
Director Chiara Clemente takes us into the worlds of the artists. Nancy Spero devotes time to the polemics of warfare and sexual identity which are grounded in her activism in the women’s movement. Marin Abramovic uses her body to respond to contemporary life as a performance artist. Kiki Smith is an artist who uses philosophy and social and spiritual issues as her base to look at the human body. Ghada Amer uses needle and thread to question “institutionalized feminism: and Swoon is a street artist with her pulse of the urban setting.
Together we get a look at New York City from the narratives of the artists in a film that is beautiful to watch. It took over 2 years to make the final film and it invites us to have a look at the creative spaces and places of the city. The movie pulls you into its subjects and into the city and gives us something to think about. It is inspired and inspiring–a love song to the city and the five artists.
Search Our City Dreams: Nancy Spero, Marina Abramovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer, Swoon, Chiara Clemente: Movies & TV from AmAzon

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