TOVA MOZARD

ILOVERUSS premiered at Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, earlier this year. The video installation is now shown for the first time in Stockholm. In the project, Mozard follows the struggling actor Russ Kingston in Hollywood over a 20-year period. Their friendship plays out on the screens, where Mozard tactfully lets Kingston immerse himself in a monologue about acting and life – with Mozard as a supporting actor. With his crummy apartment as a backdrop, Russ Kingston’s constant battle for a life in the limelight evokes feelings of both awkwardness and tenderness. Other glimpses in the film involve a playful Tova Mozard swimming in a pool with Kingston. Scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita” add another dimension to the relationship between the older man and a young woman.

On screen, Mozard is a smooth and caring observer of Russ Kingston’s whims and acts. At the same time, ILOVERUSS is a straightforward and honest portrait of the backwater of the entertainment industry. With Kingston as an intermediary, the futile struggle of mankind becomes painfully visible. There is, however, some hope; Russ Kingston is pursuing his only wish – to be an actor. He is acting even though no one is watching because acting is all he wants in life.

There is an equally important parallel thread running through the story in its subtle self-portrayal of the artist herself, an attempt to come to terms with – and perhaps even appreciate – having an outsider’s perspective. The almost childish proclamation ILOVERUSS could have been written on a wall somewhere at some point, a secret to cherish and hide. 

IMAGES: Installation views, Tova Mozard, ILOVERUSS, 2023, Cecilia Hillström Gallery. Photos: Jean-Baptiste Béranger

In the work “ILOVERUSS”, which is completed for this exhibition at Nikolaj Kunsthal, the artist moves between fiction and documentary. The film is based on 20 years of footage of the person Russ, who works as an extra in Hollywood, and with whom Mozard has developed a very special relationship over the years. The friendship unfolds in a confidential space with room for quirkiness and vulnerability. It reflects being human for better or worse – even when you don’t necessarily have a specific purpose in life.  

In addition to “ILOVERUSS”, Tova Mozard’s exhibition consists of the film “PSYCHIC” as well as a series of photos that, with Mozard’s delicate aesthetics in douche tones, thematises a search for a deeper meaning in life in a society where entertainment and consumption dominate everyday life.

The exhibition consists of a series of photographs and a video work, all including scenes of men in police uniforms doing their work, struggling both with the performance and the surrounding environment. The backdrop for the stage, the American mountainous landscape, offers a strange setting for the LAPD, Los Angeles Police Department. Stumbling around in a deserted park, the policemen seem lost and abandoned to nature.

Repetitively performed against a background of the city of dreams, the familiar one-liners closely associated with movies and TV-series gradually start to lose their content. Here, the concept of law and order seems unstable and not completely trustworthy. Are we witnessing a charade or true action – or both? Are the policemen for real or just pretending to offer safety and stability?

With an ambiguous series of photographic works, Mozard presents a sequence in which the individual works are loosely connected through American landscapes, symbolism and entertaining signifiers, creating a mysterious, almost cinematic feeling. In a dissolved society, where formal and informal authorities are being questioned, its inhabitants are fumbling for something to hold on to.

In their search for answers to complex questions, some may turn to psychic mediums and fortune-tellers for guidance, direction and clarity. These places, portrayed in several of the images by Mozard, may serve as a focal point for comfort, advice and hope for the future. At the same time, traditional authorities – like the police force – are facing problems with credibility. The concept of law and order, played out by the twin policemen in a couple of photographs, seems unstable and not completely trustworthy. Are we witnessing a charade or true action – or both? Are the policemen for real or just pretending to offer safety and stability in a similar way as the fortune-tellers? A mountainous landscape set on fire serves as a dubious back drop, giving a sense of an oncoming Doomsday.

Once the comedians and their sometimes spiteful audience have left, the scene echoes of failure and compulsive laughter. Signs and lights are switched on and off in the photographs, reflecting the rapidly changing mood of the audience and the feeling of love or rejection facing the comedian on the stage. In the new video, Entrance, a comedian is trying to share bits of what it is like to be a stand-up comedian. Shifting between certainty and insecurity, always very aware of the camera, he is found in different situations; preparing, demonstrating and acting out his role. As in her previous films, Mozard points at the nature of the relationship between the camera, the protagonist and the director, never losing touch with the profoundly human aspect of storytelling. Testing the limits of directing and acting, Mozard cleverly plays with our reactions and empathy on various levels.