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"Whose Fly is This? The
Fly is mine!" (black & white video, originally shoot
in English, 10 min., 2002), directed by Boryana Dragoeva, starring:
Yavor Kostov, David D'Agostino, Edited by SUPERNOVA, camera by Boryana
Dragoeva/Oleg Mavromatti, 3D graphics: Oleg Mavromatti; music by
DJ Hlam remix of AZIS.
Boryana Dragoeva's videowork is non-spectacular
but this characteristic is superficial, since the whole symbolics
of the images is deliberately connected to a number of, already
classical, pieces of contemporary art. The very title of the videowork
is taken from a well-known work, bearing the same title, by Ilya
Kabakov, which poses the problem of "whose property is the
fly, having entered through your window". In one of the classical
Andy Warhol's films, a fly alights onto a sleeping man. At the same
time, in Boryana Dragoeva's work takes part another object of key
importance for the contemporary art - Marcel Duchamp's urinal.
Through digital montage the image of the "historical
fly" in question is being deposited onto the urinal. These
references become clear at the end of the film with the expression
of the gratitude to all these authors. But the work, in the first
place is focused upon a dialogue between two men, using the urinal
by purpose, talking over the fly, recalling various stories with
flies, mostly ridiculous and funny stories. To them the fly is a
symbol of the female, a symbol of what they are ready to make fun
of, and act out a small but very interesting verbal performance
of machism. Here we talk about superintelectualized piece of contemporary
art, which even subjects its visuality to the narrative (the dialogue
between the men). Maybe this is the reason why at the end of the
film appears another one of the names, which the work ridicules
- the classic of conceptual art Josef Koshut. It could be claimed
for sure that Boryana Dragoeva's work derides the problem for the
fundamends of contemporary art - this very problem is highly topical
in the discussions about the meaning and innovation of art today.
Svilen Stefanov
art critic, curator
The artist is very grateful
to Marsel Duchamp, Ilya Kabakov, Andy Warhol, Josef Koshut - without
who, this movie wouldn't have been the way it is and the history
of art would have been different...
This movie has been comissioned for the Bulgarian
presentation at the Second International Biennial of Buenos Aires,
2002
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