San Carlo Cremona is pleased to present Dara Friedman, “The Tiger’s Tail”, the third show of San Carlo Cremona to be held in the 17th-century deconsecrated church of San Carlo in Via Bissolati 33, Cremona. Dara Friedman’s solo show will be on view from June the 11th to September the 9th, 2022. For the first year of the project San Carlo Cremona (September 2021 - September 2022) the artist Servane Mary has invited artists friends to exhibit in the space of San Carlo Cremona. Each exhibition is a site-specific solo presentation of an artist’s work that features various media. Initiating the series with painting: Servane Mary, “Glitches”; following with sculpture, Mark Handforth: “White-Light-Whirlwind”; we now present film, sound installation and performance with Dara Friedman, “The Tiger’s Tail”. The installation presents as its main theme the “vesica piscis”. The symbol revealed itself during the course of creating the exhibition in both the video projection “Mandorla” and the floor drawing in chalk pastels, “The Tiger’s Tail”. This form found its way into the work. “I wasn’t looking for it and didn’t know what it was when it arrived” states Dara Friedman. “Mandorla” projected on a large, two-sided screen, suspended from the central dome of the church, floats above “The Tiger’s Tail” labyrinth spiraling on the floor. In “Mandorla”, 35 mm film transferred to 4K video, the bright orbs overlap each other as if you were crossing your eyes. Under exquisite spiraling tension the arcing movement anticipates fleeting meetings and glancing misses.
Occasionally a panther laps water, her tail curling and uncurling while making eye contact, locking eyes with the viewer’s. The ripples on the water mirror the bright rings of “The Tiger’s Tail” labyrinth on the floor of the church. An unsynchronized soundtrack of gong and single violin notes, sound waves from musical instruments intentionally not composed, allows space for their vibrational qualities to overlap and collide haphazardly like ripples of water. “The Tiger’s Tail” labyrinth drawn in bright chalk on the terra-cotta floor of San Carlo, strains against the edges of the nave, the drawing’s centrifugal force expansive yet held. The monumental drawing is temporary, perhaps similar to a Buddhist mandala, marking an exquisite and passing time. Surprisingly within the central “perfect” oval of “The Tiger’s Tail”, the “vesica piscis” form was waiting to be discovered. As a filmmaker Dara Friedman understands the labyrinth as another form of movie making. The path moves us through space, physically pivoting the body, changing our point of view to see the world (inner and outer) from various perspectives, as the filmmaker does. At the same time the narrative that we bring to this walk is our own, unprescribed emotional journey, with the possibility of creating a muscle memory of the event. Putting one foot in front of the other. Moving forward along a path whose end we cannot see, because it curves.
Dara Friedman is a German born artist and filmmaker working in Miami and New York. She uses everyday sights and sounds as the raw material for film and video artworks that reverberate with emotional energy. With a background in structural film and dance, Friedman’s cinema calls for a radical reduction of the medium to its most essential material properties. In place of linear storylines, her films typically portray straightforward actions and situations that unfold according to predetermined rules and guidelines. Yet for all of Friedman’s strenuous logic and discipline, her approach remains unabashedly sensual and emotive. Bearing rich imagery and a strong emphasis on bodily experience, her films generate moments of high-pitched, cathartic intensity as well as serene, even euphoric interludes. The survey exhibition Dara Friedman: Perfect Stranger, (2017-2018) at Perez Art Museum in Miami is accompanied by a catalog raisonné from Prestel. Solo exhibitions have included Harburger Kunstverein (2019), Aspen Art Museum (2017), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014), Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit (2014), Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, North California (2012), Public Art Fund New York (2007), The Kitchen, New York (2005), Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland (2002), SITE Santa Fe (2001), and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York (1998 with Mark Handforth, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2014 with Alex Katz, 2017), Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy (2002), Supportico Lopez, Berlin (2017), Galleria Franco Noero, Turin, Italy (2018), Kayne Griffin Corcoran (2014, 2017).
