Project

Nearly Beautiful

2003, video installation

DVD, Pal, 4:3, sound, 9'15'' (loop)

Fragment, 1'28''

The video work is a close up of small stuffed puppets, which, although looking strange at first sight, are actually free gifts from the Happy Meals, the McDonalds' menu for kids. Being thrown by the invisible force down on a white pillow with pink roses design, they bounce back like balls. Their movement is accompanied by artificial screams and sounds of shrieking, snarling and breaking glass, which belong to the toys, but are increased and exaggerated in the video.

Nearly Beautiful is a kind of a funny tease with the kitsch, mass culture and everyday practices of consumption. The structure of cinematic suspense in the work is the reason for the viewer to suspect that there is something wrong and even threatening. These little McDonalds puppets are supposed to be us, the way we are toys in the hands of the hidden, but stronger Other. Thrown around by the invisible hand of the contemporary market, we scream, while bouncing back and forth somewhere in the space.

Installation view In the Gorges of the Balkans, Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel, Germany 2003

Installation views

Video Stills