Luxe Gallery Opening - Magic Box June 24, 2006

Magic Box

Opening Reception: Saturday June 24th, 2006. 6-8pm.
The Magic Box is part of an on-going series of proposals made by Nathalie Angles for the Luxe Project Space.
Magic Box is a collaborative project by filmmaker Marie Losier and artist Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria. The viewer is invited to look through an aperture and rotate a crank to view a series of moving images of Losier s film Flying Saucey!, frame by frame. Magic Box s singular mechanism refers to precursors of the modern motion picture such as the mutoscope (in which the successive phases of a scene are printed on paper and mounted on a wheel that rotates).

Recently premiered at Anthology Film Archives, Losier reduced the original 9 minutes long film, Flying Saucey!, to 9 seconds, approx. 300 separate still frames. Hence, the succession of these still images once animated by the crank, enfold and create the motion of the characters and its narrative. It thus investigates a entirely different approach to film editing, with the goal of developing a more intimate relationship to film since the option of setting the box into motion or of facing a still image is left to the initiative of an audience reduced to one person at a time.

Losier s open emulation of silent movies and their slapstick style is enhanced by the theatrical nature of the box itself, created by Sanz de Santamaria. As an extravaganza of comical pasta orgy, Flying Saucey! is one of a series of short films where she works within the visual of a silent film, with a penchant for extravagant costume, and camp theatricality that recalls the style of a Jack Smith film. The Magic Box, for the occasion, is the vessel to portray this particular style.

Marie Losier lives and works in New York. She is a filmmaker and curator whose films and videos have been shown among others at the Whitney Biennial in 2006 (Richard Foreman, “The Ontological Cowboy”), P.S.1, Tribeca Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Seoul Film Festival , The Lausanne Film Festival, Andrew Kreps Gallery, White Columns Gallery, The Black Maria Film Festival, The Biennial of Saint Etienne, The York Underground Film Festival, Lake Placid Film Festival, Pleasure Dome (Toronto), Anthology Film Archives, Ocularis, British Film Institute (London), Au Grand Action (Paris) and many others.

http://marielosier.net

Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria lives and works in New York City since 2001, where he has devoted himself to the development of the arts-collective Flux Factory, while equally deploying his skills to mediums of sound installation, musical performance, dance, and most recently, film and video. He currently coordinates the International Residency Program at Location One, New York

http://sebastiensanzdesantamaria.net

Also at LUXE Gallery

NEVERLAND curated by Stephan Stoyanov

Amelie Chabannes
Karen Gunderson
Dominik Lejman
Allan Packer
Lisa Roy
Lydia Venieri

For further information, please contact Director, Stephan Stoyanov or Nora Klumpp on (212) 582- 4425.

Luxe Gallery would like to thank Diane Ackerman, Nathalie Angles, Emmanuel Barbault, Catherine and Patrick de Saint- Aignan, Alice Kosmin, Jack Helgesen, Rolf Hoff, Anne Hugard & Patrice Lataillade, Scott & Kelly Miller, Neil Simon, Michael Straus and Wiesje & Jack van Hulst for their continuous support and enthusiasm about our program. Above all, we would like to thank all of the artists who participated in our shows for making the 2006 program the most successful season since our inception.

Stephan Stoyanov

Official Website: http://luxegallery.net