Silver Eye

Melika Bass will present two mysterious and haunting films in conjunction with our winter exhibition Gothic Fictions. The 2011 film Shoals is an entrancing prairie grotesque set on the grounds of a rural sanitarium, where three young women search for wellness, as a cult leader seeks to control their bodies through work and daily rituals. Her 2018 film Creature Companion is set in the American suburbs, where two women mysteriously and sensuously entwine in this slow-burning, saucy, abstracted fable on the longing and laboring female body. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the filmmaker.

Program

Creature Companion, Directed by Melika Bass, featuring Selma Banich and Penelope Hearne. Co-produced by Dave Tolchinsky and Dan Silverstein., Super16mm film to 2K, 2018, 30mins.

Shoals, Directed by Melika Bass, featuring Carolina Gonzalez Valencia, Emily Irvine, Chris Sullivan, and Kayla Wroblewski, 16mm to HD, 2011, 52mins.

Image from Creature Companion 30 mins., Super16mm film to 2K, 2018

Channel Silver Eye is a microcinema series based in our Penn Avenue gallery. Several times a year we present a selection of experimental films and videos based around a different theme programed by curators and artists from around the country. Popcorn and beer is served during the screening, questions and answers with the programmer and artists are at the end.

Participating Artist

1. Melika Bass makes slow-burning, abstracted narrative films and atmospheric, experiential installations. Shows include: BFI London Film Festival; Kino der Kunst, Munich; Film Society of Lincoln Center, NYC; Torino Film Festival, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Oberhausen Film Festival, Germany; New Museum, NYC. Awards include: Artadia; Experimental Film Prize, Athens International Film Festival; Kodak/Filmcraft Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival; and two Media Arts Fellowships, Illinois Arts Council. Bass lives and works in Chicago.