The Mismade Girl
The video work The Mismade Girl is to a certain extent a portrait of a dying breed – the American style entertainer with an ever-gleaming smile on his face who is out of sync with his time. The magician Chuck Jones and Jan, his life and show partner, have developed the classic trick ‘Sawing a Lady in Half’ into a magic routine where the parts are multiplied by four – ‘The Mismade Girl’, an act being copied around the world. But the video is ultimately a self-portrait by Mozard – she becomes the artwork as the director of the performance and through her participation in the trick.
Tova Mozard plays the woman who is sawn into pieces while lying in a box. Through role play, Mozard investigates several aspects of the act and its connotations in a wider sense. The female body is imaginary bisected, while at the same time holding the gaze of the audience where the attraction lies in the beauty and the horror of the act. At stake is a promise of a continuous rebirth, to gain affirmation through the gaze – demanding attention at a moment of perceived danger in front of a passive audience. The urge to please and at the same time take charge coexist in a moment of self-effacing.
When Tova Mozard documents and reveals the workings of the magician’s tricks she is also digging deep down into the core of symbolism. What does it mean to dismember a woman? How could this be perceived as entertainment? In the video, we follow the setting and preparation of the show, at the same time approaching the roles the participants play as performers; how they perceive themselves and their purpose.
In the fiction of the magic performance there is a freedom of interpretation; the spectator may project their own fantasies during different parts of the game. During the endless repetition of the trick, despair and delight are intertwined in the same banal and repulsive magic act.
Duration: 00:16:34
Language: English
Year: 2020
Psychic
The neon signs of the Psychics cut through the darkness. Beckoning, like temples of a secular religion promising guidance through the confusion that is life. A lost soul’s stumbles through a world where no one seems to take notice. Inhabitants of the small shard of society where everything is suspended in limbo. In search of belonging. To be defined is to be erased, a new beginning.
Duration: 00:18:30
Language: English
Year: 2019
Cops are Actors
Somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles, we meet four actors who portray the police profession, through narrative and staging.
Duration: 00:20:00
Language: English
Year: 2018
The Big Scene
The artist Tova Mozard sits with her mother and grandmother on the main stage at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm. As if in a therapy session, the three unveil a series of powerful stories about what is inevitably and unintentionally passed on from generation to generation, between mother and daughter. Mozard experiments with privacy in a theatrical surrounding and stages a situation in wich reality is unavoidable.
The Big Scene was produced by Memfis Film and nominated for Best Short Film at the Swedish Guldbagge Awards in 2012.
Duration: 00:31:00
Language: Swedish
Year: 2012
Entrance
A comedian is preparing, rehearsing to tell the story of what life is like in his line of work.
Duration: 00:15:48
Language: English
Year: 2015
Repertoire
A man digs a hole in the earth while he describes and reflects on his life. By looking back on parts of his own history he comes closer to some form of reconciliation with it. The work brings to mind how words anchor us in reality but also keep us imprisoned in our own narratives.
Duration: 00:28:00
Language: Swedish
Year: 2013
Victims of Poverty and Hardship
A man is showing off himself and his clothes in front of the camera in a small room, his own, the movements and gestures are natural but much exaggerated, the man is a Swenka.
Swenkas is a small group of Zulu workingmen, which was formed in South Africa following the abolishment of Apartheid. On Saturday nights they perform at different venues to impress a judge, the prize for the most stylish suit is cash, but sometimes a goat or a cow. The men follow certain set values such as physical cleanliness, sobriety and above all self-respect. The video’s voice over is taken from an interview with photographer and journalist TJ Lemon, famous for photographing Swenkas in Jeppe Hostel and making them known to the public. He speaks about his interest in this cultural phenomenon and why his work is important.
Duration: 00:05:30
Language: English
Year: 2006
Wall of Love
A video in which we meet a Swedish woman, Mrs. Berliner-Mauer, who has entered into a marriage with the Berlin Wall. Her unusual disposition is objectum-sexual, indicating an emotional and sexual attraction to things. The woman’s personal and sexual relation to the wall is contrasted with its historical political significance. She describes the day the wall fell as the worst day of her life. Her very clear description of herself makes the remarkable story approachable and raises questions about perceptions of reality, differences, desires and morals.
Duration: 00:05:00
Language: English
Year: 2005
Just visiting this Planet
This video is based on parts of interviews made with the older generation of Science Fiction fans in Los Angeles during 2004. Several of these voices belong to famous sci-fi writers and other experts within the genre. You get an insight in these fans unique relationship to different subject areas. Everything in between FBI interfering with comic book stories to pollution problems to whether God exist or not, is being discussed. Image-effects resembling screen-savers react to the sound of their voices and the illusionary images create an imaginative effect.
Duration: 00:17:30
Language: English
Year: 2005
No One lived my Life, not even Me
Eddie sits in his couch and talks about his life in Los Angeles as a clown and a street performer.He also speaks about other things relating and leading up to this career. He brings up issues dealing with the need for attention and recognition, but also about Hollywood as a manipulative and ungrateful industry. Eddie’s way of talking about himself is performed with a sense of humor: by being both skeptical and ironic, he transforms the cliché of the sad clown.
Duration: 00:17:00
Language: English
Year: 2003
Cowboy Russ
A man is re-telling a duel scene from the movie The Magnificent Seven from 1960. He narrates the story in such great detail that through imagination the audience is transported to the setting of the scene in the movie. The storyteller ends by saying ‘cut’, as he freezes in a pose. The illusion is gone and the set for his story is back being in a plain apartment. The shift from his self-confident way of entertaining to realities vulnerability becomes extremely present and calls attention to the audience’s involvement in the piece.
Duration: 00:08:00
Language: English
Year: 2003
Leona Babette, Westwood, Los Angeles
Leona is a nightclub singer in Los Angeles. In the video she sits in her living room, sings short demonstrations of songs, and comments upon each of them. She alternates between performing and speaking about her life as both a private and a public person. She addresses the person behind the camera, the audience watching the video almost ‘becomes’ this person and it creates an intimate space between the viewer and the subject.
Duration: 00:07:00
Language: English
Year: 2002
TOVA MOZARD 