REVITAL COHEN & TUUR VAN BALEN
The Odds (part 1), 2019
Video HD, sound, LED screen; 18’
Video installation
Galleria delle Vasche, Pelanda
from June 24 to 27 from 5.00pm to midnight
from July 20 to 30 from 11.00am to 12.00am
from July 31 to August 22 from tuesday to Wednesday from 11.00am to 8.00pm, Saturday and Sunday from 11.00am to 10.00pm
Free admission. Restricted numbers apply in compliance with the rules dued to the health emergency
The Odds (part 1) brings together racehorses anaesthetised and collapsed on ketamine in a ‘knockdown box’, showgirls from a casino in Macau belonging to the world’s biggest political donor, and Steve Ignorant from anarcho punk band Crass performing in a bingo hall originally built as a cinema designed to look like a church. Produced specifically for a large LED screen, the footage is overlaid with pulsating light formations inspired by Vegas techniques of visual seduction. The interconnections evoked draw logic from apophenia - a psychiatric term describing the tendency to perceive meaning connections between unrelated things or patterns in random information.
Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen is an aristic duo based in London. They work across objects, installation and film to explore processes of production as cultural, personal and political practices. Their work is part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and M+ Museum, Hong Kong.
The duo has exhibited in some of the most important international contemporary art spaces such as: Z33 Kunstencentrum, Hasselt; Schering Stiftung, Berlin; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The 13th Shanghai Biennale; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Recent film screenings took place at the Serpentine Cinema, London; The Toronto Biennale 2019; Philadelphia Museum of Art and Congo International Film Festival, Goma. Their upcoming monograph Not What I Meant but Anyway will be published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City (2021).
In the Galleria delle Vasche, in the “Pelanda” of Rome’s Mattatoio (former slaughterhouse), The Odds (part 1) becomes a trip through an environment that resonates with the reality of the space, contributing to create a dystopic context.