UNTITLED; Woman; 3/4 view is an installation composed of a 16mm film loop, a 12 minute video loop projection and a text piece. The project opened on December 23, 2013 at Hadas Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. The installation proposes several views and attempts at narrating the history and life stories of seven Russian-Jewish artists and one anonymous woman, who appear together in a well-known photograph from Vitebsk, 1919.
In the photograph, seven teachers are seated while one woman stands in three-quarter view behind them. The seated figures are labeled “El Lissitzy, Vera Yermolaeva, Chagall, David Yakerson, Yuri Pen, Nina Kogan, Alexander Romm;” the standing woman is not identified in the inscription. UNTITLED; Woman; 3/4 view examines the narratives proposed by the image, looks outside of the photographic frame, as well as addresses the difficulty of speaking on behalf of this history and proposes alternative narratives, fantasies and futures for this image of the past.
Examination of the narrative by the image
Project(s) implemented since graduating:
SAMIZDAT “GOODBYE LENIN” with commentary by Masha Vlasova and Joshua Weibley is a collaborative project conceived and executed during a one night residency as part of “24X36” at the ACE Hotel in New York City. Drawing on the history and practice of samizdat (Russian, abbreviated “self publishing) underground method of copying and distribution of censored materials in the former Soviet Union, Vlasova and Weibley created an edition of 12 DVDs and handmade cases with a commentary track to the German film “Good Bye Lenin!”
Fellows
Masha (Mariya) Vlasova Unknown Woman in Three-Quarter View: Letters to an Imaginary Lover Masha (Mariya) Vlasova is a Russian born artist who lives and works in New York City. She is the recipient of a Robert Breer Film and Video Award, an IIE Fulbright grant in filmmaking (Kyrgyz Republic), a CASI Foreign Research Fellowship, an ACANSRS Film Grant and COJECO BluePrint Fellowship. Masha Vlasova's photographs and videos have recently been exhibited at La MaMa La Galleria, Leeds College of Art, UK and Hadas Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Sculpture at Yale.
