Eve Sussman & Rufus Corporation. The Rape of the Sabine Women

The Impronte contemporary art gallery in Milan inaugurates on January 20th, 2011 the Italy Premiere of The Rape of the Sabine Women, the renowned video musical by Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation which, since its preview in New York in 2007, has done the rounds of the major international exhibitions and festivals in London, Berlin, Moscow, Athens, Melbourne and San Francisco.

Created with the Rufus Corporation—a 'think tank' of more than 100 performers, artists, musicians, writers and programmers founded by Eve Sussman in 2003—The Rape of the Sabine Women is an eighty-minute allegory, freely adapted from the myth of the foundation of Rome, according to which the Sabine women were abducted to assure the future generations of Romans.

Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation relocate the myth to an idealized 1960s setting with a 5-act theatrical structure, a narration devoid of spoken language and filmed on locations in Greece in Athens and Hydra, and in Berlin, Germany.

The modernist 60s setting suggest a concept of "a better life through design", inevitably destroyed by the chaos inherent in the promise itself.

Eve Sussman explains: "In all my works I investigate narrative through gesture, psychological interactions and group dynamics"; the recurrent themes in her works include power, desire, utopia and identity loss.

While the Roman myth outlines the birth of a society, this narrative points to the destruction of a utopia. Interactions are fraught with tension and the ensuing chaos transforms the designed perfection into nothingness.

The Rape of the Sabine Women, half way between a film and a video, is directed by Eve Sussman, the original soundtrack is by Jonathan Bepler, choreography by Claude De Serpa Soares and the costumes are by Karen Young.

As an integral part of the project, the exhibition at Impronte Gallery will also include a series of photographs, that have been already included in prestigious international collections.

Eve Sussman (1961) is a Brooklyn-based artist and filmmaker ( New York , USA ). Since 2003, together with the Rufus Corporation, she has created 89 Seconds at Alcazar (2004), The Rape of the Sabine Women (2007) , the installation Yuri's Office (2009) , and the current work-in-progress experimental project whiteonwhite:algorithmictrhiller.

Her works have been exhibited in the most prestigious museums worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of Modern Art and MoMA in New York, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark and the National Gallery in London.

The Rape of the Sabine Women
Eve Sussman & Rufus Corporation