Cécile B. Evans

Cécile B. Evans (born 1983) is an Belgian-American artist who lives and works in London.[1] Evans is known for her use of video, installation, sculpture and performance,[2] focusing on the value of emotion in contemporary society and its rebellion as it comes into contact with physical, ideological, and technological structures.[3]

Early life

Evans attended New York University for acting in method acting and experimental theatre.[4] She worked as an actress until she started making art. As an actress, Evans also worked as a makeup artist in various department stores, along with bartending, waitressing, and being a secret food critic.[4] She moved from New York to Paris to Berlin[4] throughout her adulthood, and has now settled in London.[5]

Career

Evans has been active in many solo and group exhibitions over the years, and is well known for her pieces "Hyperlinks or it Didn’t Happen" (2014) and "What the Heart Wants" (2016). They have been shown as installations and screened. Evans' first large project, "Hyperlinks or it Didn’t Happen" has been exhibited at the Projections New York Film Festival,[6] Seventeen Gallery,[7] Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art,[8] Artspace,[9] Sydney Biennale,[9] and GARAGE Museum.[10] "How Happy a Thing Can Be" (2014), another video made the same year, was co-commissioned by Wysing Arts Centre and RADAR/Loughborough University.[11] It has been exhibited in Art Basel,[12] Kunsthalle Wien,[13] Whitney Museum,[14] Ural Industrial Biennial,[15] and CentroCentro (ARCO). Evans' project, "What the Heart Wants" was included in the Berlin Bienniale,[5] Artspace, the GARAGE Museum, and Kunsthalle Winterthur.[16] Evans' work, Amos’ World (2018) has been exhibited at places such as Mumok,[17] Tramway,[18] Château Shatto,[19] and Madre Museum.[20] Evans has also been the recipient of a number or art awards, including the Frieze Art Fair's Emdash Award (2012),[21] Palais de Tokyo/Orange's Push Your Art Prize (2013),[22] Schering Stiftung (2016),[23] illy Present Future Prize (2016),[24] and is shortlisted for the Jarman Award (2019).[25]

Works
  • "What the Heart Wants" (2016) is video installation that looks at what it could mean to be human, and who or what will be considered human, in the future.[16]
  • "Hyperlinks or it Didn't Happen" (2014) is a video about a group of digital beings that search for their meaning.[26]
  • "How Happy a Thing Can Be" (2014) is a short video that follows a screwdriver, scissors and comb as their emotional limits are pushed.[12]
  • "Sprung a Leak" (2016) is an automated play performed by three robots and three humans as they cope with emotionally charged information leaking from a system that surrounds them.[27]
  • "Amos' World" (2018) is a mock tv series and video installation about an architect, his “socially progressive housing estate”, and the inhabitants who are quickly alienated by the building. Chris Sharratt writes that it "is not a didactic unpicking of modernist thinking and aesthetics. Instead, the exhibition acts as an allegory for a recurring concern in Evans’s work: 'how digital technology impacts the human condition.'... a tale of individual hubris brought to heel by collective resistance, of lost souls finding networked ways to turn solitary grievances into communal action.".[18]

"What the Heart Wants" (2016)

“What the Heart Wants” (2016) was first exhibited in November 2016 and was also Evans first museum exhibition.[28] It is Evans’ most extensive piece to date. She examines a future timeline in which technology is the basis of society and the lines between humanity and robot have become extremely blurred, as well as how they shape each other.[29] The main character, HYPER, narrates what it means to be a person over the course of the 41- minute film.[30] Unlimited power has been given to a company that has control over personal information, and has taken the form of a woman (HYPER).[29] She has become “human”, and struggles with the subjective nature of the world. Evans uses topics such as stem cell research, dress codes, terrorism, systemic oppression, and other large organizational structures to discuss this idea.[31] The film also shows both the progress and problems that have arisen in society as time has passed, and based on the choices people and organizational systems have made. The film follows other obscure characters, such as a large collection of ears, pair of lovers, an immortal cell, and a robot, as they explore what it means to be a human. Some characters from past works of Evans’ appear as well (AGNES, PHIL, Invisible Woman).[31]

Collections

Evans' work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art,[32] Castello di Rivoli, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art [33] and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.[34]

References
  1. "Cécile B. Evans: International Film Festival Rotterdam". IFFR. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  2. "Cécile B. Evans- Amos' World- Art Night 2018". Art Night London. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  3. "MADRE MUSEUM » Amos' World: Episode Three". Madre. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  4. "Artist Profile: Cecile B. Evans". Rhizome. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  5. "Berlin Biennale | Cécile B. Evans". Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  6. "Projections Program 9 | New York Film Festival". Film at Lincoln Center. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  7. Kingsl, 270-276. "Cécile B. Evans - Hyperlinks". Seventeen. Retrieved 2019-10-18.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. "Then They Form Us". Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  9. Digital, Atlas. "Performance Lecture | Cécile B. Evans". ArtSpace. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  10. "Special screening of Cécile B. Evans films Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen and How Happy a Thing Can Be". Garage. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  11. "Radar - Cécile B. Evans". radar.lboro.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  12. "How Happy a Thing can be". Art Basel. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  13. "Home". kunsthallewien.at. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  14. "Cécile B. Evans". www.whitney.org. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  15. "4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art: New Literacy - Announcements - e-flux". www.e-flux.com. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  16. "Cécile B. Evans "What the Heart Wants" at Kunsthalle Winterthur •". Mousse Magazine (in Italian). 2016-09-16. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  17. "Cécile B. Evans". www.mumok.at. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  18. "Cécile B. Evans's "Amos' World" - Features - art-agenda". www.art-agenda.com. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  19. "Cécile B. Evans at Château Shatto (Contemporary Art Daily)". www.contemporaryartdaily.com. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  20. "Cécile B. Evans". Madre Napoli. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  21. "Emdash Award 2012". frieze.com. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  22. "Push your art". Palais de Tokyo EN. 2016-05-26. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  23. "What the Heart Wants – Schering Stiftung". Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  24. "Cécile B. Evans wins the illy Present Future Prize 2016". Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  25. "FLAMIN - Cécile B. Evans". flamin.filmlondon.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  26. "VIDEO: Cécile B. Evans - Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen, 2014 | artlead". artlead.net. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  27. "Cécile B. Evans "Sprung a Leak" at M – Museum Leuven •". Mousse Magazine (in Italian). 2017-11-03. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  28. "What the heart wants". Frans Hals Museum. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  29. www.dandelion-burdock.com, dandelion & burdock. "Cécile B. Evans: What The Heart Wants". thisistomorrow. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  30. "Berlin Biennale | Cécile B. Evans". Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  31. "Cécile B. Evans "What the Heart Wants" at Kunsthalle Winterthur •". Mousse Magazine (in Italian). 2016-09-16. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  32. "Cécile B. Evans". www.whitney.org.
  33. "Akademie der Bildenden Künste München - Projectclass Cécile B. Evans". adbk.de.
  34. "Cécile B. Evans. What the Heart Wants. 2016 - MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
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