Driven - Monika Larsen Dennis & Maria Friberg

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents Driven (1998), a public video work by Monika Larsen Dennis and Maria Friberg. Driven will be projected onto a surface on P.S.1's roof and will be visible from the roof and from the elevated #7 subway train for three weeks, beginning at sunset and running throughout the night. P.S.1 will host a special event on the roof during the December 9th opening from 4pm-6pm.

In Driven, black-clad bodies drift in slow motion across a white background, clutching at one another, entangled in a dance that is equal parts violence and desire. The title of the work suggests that the two subjects' actions are compulsive, while their gestures form an urgent dialogue that appears to alternate between uninhibited joy and repulsion. In dark suits, the dancers' image is cropped at the neck and thighs, leaving their gender unspecified. As they push and pull across the screen, the silent, blurred image evokes a dreamlike state, engaging onlookers in an intimate moment while simultaneously leaving viewers to guess their identities and their intentions.

Central to Monika Larsen Dennis's whole production is the duality of the relationship, its eternal pendulum between trust and suspicion, affection and aggression, and desire for freedom and captivity. Friberg's video and photography involves themes of identity construction, masculinity, and power. Their collaboration, Driven, has been shown on several occasions since 1998 in Stockholm and Wan's in Sweden, London, and Copenhagen. This is its first presentation in the United States.

Monika Larsen Dennis was born in Malmö, Sweden in 1963, and currently lives and works in Stockholm. Solo exhibitions include Augment Time, Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden; SPELL, Zinc Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden; Reconsidering Choise and other works, Gavle Konstcentrum, Gavle, Sweden; ALL OVER, Barbacka Konsthall, Kristianstad, Sweden; and HEARTBRAIN, Gallery Larsen, Stockholm, Sweden. Group exhibitions include 17UP, Poznan, Poland; Millesgarden (with Marc Chagall), Stockholm, Sweden; Wans 2000, Wans Foundation, Sweden; Exterus Lahti, Lahti, Finland; and Sculpture Triennial II, Vinterviken, Stockholm, Sweden.

Maria Friberg was born in Malmö, Sweden, in 1966, and currently lives and works in New York. Solo exhibitions include Team Gallery, New York (2001); Arndt & Partner II, Berlin (2001); Statement, Galleri Charlotte Lund, Basel Art Fair (2000); and Gallery Mezzanin, Vienna (2000). Group exhibitions include Le Mois de la Photo Montral, Montreal; Abbild (Depiction), Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austri; SENSITIVE, Le Printemps de Cahors, Cahors, France; Real Work, 4th Werkleitz Biennale, Werkleitz, Germany; Mülheim Media Mile 2000, Mülheim ad Ruhr, Germany; and European Factory, Bologna, Italy.

Monika Larsen Dennis, Maria Friberg
Driven
Kurator: Larissa Harris