Karen Yasinsky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karen Yasinsky (* 1965 in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania) is an American artist and lecturer. Her focus is on experimental film, animation / video and graphics. She teaches at the Johns Hopkins University in the field of Film and Media Studies and the Maryland Institute College of Art at the Faculty of animation. Her teaching activities include animation, surrealism, experimental film and the aesthetics of film language. She lives in New York .

Professional background

She studied art history and mathematics at Duke University in Durham and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor's degree. In 1990 she continued her studies at New York Studio School , and in 1992 she graduated from Yale University School of Art with a Masters .

Artistic development

Karen Yasinsky started painting. From 1999 she turned to animated videos. She justified her motivation for this change with her fascination for something that characterizes the film and that for her was difficult to achieve with painting: The film includes the audience in the emotional state of the characters in a way that allows the audience to ponder their reactions to what they saw.

painting

The artist worked with a mixture of painting, drawing and collage. She depicted tiny characters involved in confusing encounters with people who could be presumed to belong to the same family. There is pulling, pushing, touching, the head being pulled in, and there are also more symbolic depictions of action such as children who are tied to their mothers. In her graphic and painterly work, Karen Yasinsky endeavored to remain true to everyday subtle dramas, undefined feelings and the associated scars, i.e. to give them neither grotesque nor ironic features. In the distorted faces of the characters and their sometimes bizarre body language, the feelings emerge. According to her own statements, she stopped painting after her second exhibition because she had the feeling that she was not developing her own handwriting but was trying to imitate great artists whose works she had studied.

Videos

  • Technology and way of working

Karen Yasinsky mostly uses stop-motion techniques in her videos. This meets their need to work alone. She also feels it is an advantage that the filming process is comparatively lengthy here: This gives her the time to develop the characters' motivations for their movements and to translate them into action. The selected technique has the advantage that it does not have to give actors instructions for the movements and justify them rationally.

Some of the figures were made by Karen Yasinsky herself. During the production, the artist develops an idea of ​​the character of the figure.

  • Subject

The videos tell ambiguous stories about the interaction between people. Chases, shootings, and Cinderella shoes add a dramatic tension to the majority of her films, but the plot is just an attempt to rewrite the characters' emotions. The artist "shatters picture and sound through atmospheric disturbances" and uses hard cuts.

  • characters

The figures are often surrounded by a wistful atmosphere and appear to be standing in their own way. According to the artist, the awkward movements speak to the fears, frustrations and desires of the audience. The artist says of her characters that her main theme is the inability to connect with people on a certain level. The emotional space of the characters is the center of the artistic work. Karen Yasinsky tried to describe this with "Life is calm, but strange."

Works (selection)

No place like home

No Place like Home # 1
Karen Yasinsky , 1999
animation

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

There are several parts to this video: No Place like Home # 1 and No Place like Home # 2 are from 1999, No Place like Home # 3 They depict sexual violence with animated dolls made of fabric, wire and polymer clay.

No Place like Home # 1 begins with the poppy fields from The Wizard of Oz , then a dancer appears wearing Dorothy's red shoes. A man with bad intentions approaches her, wraps her in a sheet, and stares between her legs as she lies on the floor. the male figure is much smaller than the female figure, which only consists of red pumps, legs and a skirt, which is an expression of the desiring look. First the female lower body dances and hits the pumps together. This, and the title, may allude to The Wizard of Oz : There, the three clash of heels in red shoes expressed Dorothy's desire to go home; but in the video this safe place is not reached. When the woman stops dancing and lies motionless on the beach, the man approaches and satisfies his lust in her. The camera is now aimed at his incredulous, amazed face, which gives the impression that he can hardly believe his luck. In 2016, this video No Place like Home gave the group exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich No Place like Home the title.

In No Place Like Home # 2, a clothed man in bed applauds the pirouettes of a dancer who quickly realizes that she only has one lower body. He leaves the room and comes back later. A woman faces the dancer. The two fight and make up again, then the woman plops onto the bed.

Yasinsky said in an interview that this, as in other videos of hers, is about relationships, about trying to find something in another person, and about the point at which you get slowed down in your endeavors, and that is through the fears of the other person or through their inability to enter into relationships.

Working on L'Atalante (2005 to 2008)

L'Atalante # 23
Karen Yasinsky , 2007
drawing
21.59 x 27.94 cm

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

In 2005, at the invitation of the Foundation Center for Contemporary Art , Karen Yasinsky spent a scholarship stay in Prague, where stop-motion animations have long played a major role. She worked on Jean Vigo's groundbreaking film Atalante from 1934 and created a series of drawings and five animations based on it. The artist began in 2005 with mostly small-format drawings, which include simple outline drawings as well as detailed scenes, collages and drawings with colored pop elements. She used still images from Vigo's film as source material and devoted herself to the reconstruction of the narrative and the creation of new characters. In addition to watercolor and pencil, the artist also used ink, gouache and felt pen as well as photo collages. You can see figures who are jointly harassed by spiders and cobwebs or appear isolated and woven into their own world.

For the animations Jules et Juliette (2007), Jean et Juliette (2007) and Oh Juliette (2008), the artist drew a film still over and over again and put together twelve drawings for one second of film. Because of the tiny differences between the drawings, the outlines vibrate in the film, and the jumps in the image create an atmosphere of uncertainty. The animation Le Matin (2007) traces the beginning of the film from memory. Juliette's wishes are already hinted at when the wedding dress is animated to transform into a mini skirt. La Nuit (2008) is a puppet animation. Yasinsky was interested in the scene in which the two protagonists sleep separately because the woman has left the man. The eroticism in this scene can be felt in the lighting design.

Filmography

  • 2016: The Man from Hong Kong
  • 2015: The Perpetual Motion of my Love for You
  • 2013: After Hours
  • 2013: The Lonely Life of Debby Adams
  • 2012: Life is an Opinion, Fire a Fact
  • 2011: Pathetic Magic
  • 2011: Pools of Shadow from an Older Sky
  • 2011: This Room is White
  • 2010: Audition
  • 2010: Marie. Music by Johannes Brahms and Snacks (Tom Boram, Dan Breen). 6 minutes.
  • 2009: Enough to Drive You Mad
  • 2009: I Choose Darkness
  • 2008: La nuit
  • 2007: Le matin
  • 2003: Who's your true love?
  • 2003: Animal Behavior
  • 2002: Boys
  • 2002: Still Life with Cows
  • 2001: Research of Time's Loss
  • 2001: Fear
  • 1999: No Place Like Home # 1 & 2
  • 1998: Drop That Baby Again

Awards (selection)

Numerous renowned institutions sponsored the artist's work. In 2002 she received a Guggenheim scholarship in the field of video and animation. In 2003 she received a scholarship from the American Academy in Berlin .

In 2010 she was awarded the Mary Sawyers Baker Prize , which is part of the Baker Artist Award program . In 2011 she was awarded the Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize by the American Academy in Rome and was selected as a scholarship holder.

Karen Yasinsky regularly receives invitations to film festivals. She was represented at the New York Underground Film Festival in 1999.

Exhibitions

Karen Yasinsky's first solo exhibition with works from her graphic and painterly oeuvre took place in the Fall of 1995 at the Casey Kaplan Gallery in New York City . Her video No Place like Home was shown there shortly after its completion in 1999. Since 2001/2002 her works have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. At that time she took part in the group show Animations at MoMA PS1 in New York . From 2003 it was also noticed more in the Federal Republic. In 2003, 2005 and 2008 works by her were exhibited at Sprüth Magers in Munich . In 2003, she exhibited her work Fear (2001) in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin , in the Kunst-Werken Berlin she took part in the group exhibition Animations .

Since then, Karen Yasinsky's works have been seen several times in Germany. Among other things, she was awarded by the Folkwang Museum in Essen in 2012 for participation in the group exhibition Drawing Stories. Narrative selected in contemporary graphics , which also showed animated short films based on drawings. Twelve German and international artists were presented in Essen, "who are among the most interesting representatives of a narrative drawing."

Position in art history

Karen Yasinsky was placed in line with Sue Williams , Margaret Curtis and other feminist artists whose works show a certain proximity to caricature and cartoon . An artistic closeness to Nicole Eisenman and Lee Gordon can also be seen in their graphic and painterly work.

literature

Exhibition catalogs

  • Museum Folkwang (ed.): Telling stories. Narrative in contemporary graphics. For the exhibition from May 19 to July 15, 2012. Edition Folkwang / Steidl Göttingen, 2012, ISBN 978-3-86930-475-5 .
  • Ingvild Goetz, Stephan Urbaschek: Fast forward. Fast forward on the occasion of the exhibition . Media Art Collection Goetz at the ZKM, Karlsruhe, October 11, 2003 to February 29, 2004. Hatje Cantz Ostfildern, 2006, ISBN 978-3-7757-1865-3 .
  • Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Ed.): Who's your true love . Catalog for Karen Yasinsky fellowship stay at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. Vice-Versa-Verlag Berlin, 2003, ISBN 3-932754-42-5

items

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Karen Yasinsky - Film and Media Studies. In: krieger.jhu.edu. May 7, 2015, accessed August 7, 2016 .
  2. ^ Karen Yasinsky's Profile - Baker Artist Portfolios. (No longer available online.) In: bakerartist.org. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on August 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bakerartist.org
  3. ^ A b Karen Yasinsky. (No longer available online.) In: americanacademy.de. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on August 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.americanacademy.de
  4. Karen Yasinsky. In: iffr.com. January 26, 2016, accessed August 7, 2016 .
  5. a b 5: 3 Five Artists: Three States - Center for Art Design and Visual Culture - UMBC. In: cadvc.umbc.edu. Retrieved August 6, 2016 .
  6. a b c d e Grace Glueck: ART IN REVIEW; Karen Yasinsky - 'No Place Like Home'. In: nytimes.com. April 30, 1999, accessed August 10, 2016 .
  7. a b c d e Karen Yasinsky (Artist) in Baltimore, MD (Maryland) from re-title.com. (No longer available online.) In: re-title.com. April 11, 2009, archived from the original on September 16, 2016 ; accessed on September 11, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.re-title.com
  8. a b c d e f g Roberta Smith: Art in Review. In: nytimes.com. September 15, 1995, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  9. a b c d Karen Yasinsky, interviewed by Carlos Valdes-Lora: Art as Active Agent: An Interview With Artist and Educator Karen Yasinsky - Film and Media Studies. In: krieger.jhu.edu. April 10, 2010, accessed September 13, 2016 .
  10. a b c Animations - Program - KW Institute for Contemporary Art. (No longer available online.) In: kw-berlin.de. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on August 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kw-berlin.de
  11. a b c KB - Karen Yasinsky. In: bethanien.de. February 1, 2004, accessed August 6, 2016 .
  12. a b Volker Müller: Film evening with animation filmmaker Bettina Munk. In: bundestag.de. November 27, 2012, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  13. a b c d e admin: No Place like Home. (No longer available online.) In: maimuna.com. May 7, 2016, archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on August 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.maimuna.com
  14. No Place like Home - Goetz Collection in the House of Art - Goetz Collection. In: sammlung-goetz.de. August 1, 2014, accessed August 6, 2016 .
  15. ^ Conversations at the Edge (CATE). In: blogs.saic.edu. March 17, 2013, accessed August 10, 2016 .
  16. Art in General. In: artingeneral.org. Retrieved August 6, 2016 .
  17. a b c d e f Museum Folkwang (ed.): Telling stories. Narrative in contemporary graphics. On the exhibition from May 19 to July 15, 2012. Edition Folkwang / Steidl Göttingen, 2012, ISBN 978-3-86930-475-5 , p. 134.
  18. ^ Karen Yasinsky: L'Atalante - kunstaspekte - artaspects. In: kunstaspekte.de. September 21, 2007, accessed August 6, 2016 .
  19. The Lonely Life of Debby Adams. In: vimeo.com. October 17, 2013, accessed on September 11, 2016 .
  20. Life is an Opinion, Fire a Fact, 2012. In: vimeo.com. December 9, 2012, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  21. ^ Pathetic Magic, 2012. In: vimeo.com. June 3, 2011, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  22. ^ Pools of Shadow from an Older Sky, 2011. In: vimeo.com. August 16, 2011, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  23. This room is white. In: vimeo.com. June 24, 2011, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  24. AUDITION. In: vimeo.com. September 23, 2012, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  25. Marie. In: vimeo.com. June 23, 2011, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  26. ^ Enough to drive you mad, 2009. In: vimeo.com. September 7, 2010, accessed on September 11, 2016 .
  27. ^ I Choose Darkness, 2009. In: vimeo.com. March 20, 2012, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  28. La Nuit, 2007. In: vimeo.com. September 8, 2010, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  29. Le Matin 2007. In: vimeo.com. March 11, 2012, accessed on September 11, 2016 .
  30. Who's Your True Love? 2003. In: vimeo.com. September 2, 2016, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  31. ^ Boys, 2002. In: vimeo.com. August 27, 2016, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  32. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - Karen Yasinsky. In: gf.org. June 14, 2020, accessed on August 6, 2016 .
  33. ^ Karen Yasinsky's 2010 Winning Portfolio - Baker Artist Portfolios. (No longer available online.) In: bakerartist.org. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on August 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bakerartist.org
  34. ^ Karen Yasinsky's Profile - Baker Artist Portfolios. (No longer available online.) In: bakerartist.org. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016 ; accessed on August 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bakerartist.org
  35. ^ Member Directory - American Academy in Rome. In: aarome.org. Retrieved August 6, 2016 .
  36. ^ Karen Yasinsky - School of Fine Arts Index. In: sofa.aarome.org. Retrieved August 6, 2016 .
  37. Cashiers du Cinemart: Cashiers du Cinemart - Issue 11 - New York Underground Film Festival 1999. In: cashiersducinemart.com. Retrieved August 6, 2016 .
  38. a b Biography: Karen Yasinsky in Re-title.com. (No longer available online.) In: re-title.com. Archived from the original on August 7, 2016 ; accessed on September 11, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.re-title.com
  39. ^ Karen Yasinsky - kunstaspekte - artaspects. In: kunstaspekte.de. February 27, 2000, accessed August 6, 2016 .
  40. ^ KB - Karen Yasinsky. In: bethanien.de. February 1, 2004, accessed August 6, 2016 .
  41. a b Drawing stories - Museum Folkwang. In: museum-folkwang.de. June 9, 2016, accessed August 6, 2016 .