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Photo by Liv Bugge. Goliat, Draugen & Maria, 2022 (still).

Liv Bugge and Ellie Ga

Ancient History

July 13 – September 11, 2023
Location

On the High Line at 14th Street

Daily, beginning at dusk
Note: The Channel will not be shown on the following dates: August 30 & 31, September 1, 4, 5, 6, 7

The exhibition Ancient History brings two new films into conversation: Liv Bugge’s Goliat, Draugen & Maria (2022) and Ellie Ga’s Quarries (2022). The two films take up different approaches to storytelling, imagining our connections to histories from vastly different time scales, from ancient myths and prehistoric creatures to memories from mere months ago. Both films navigate the materials that histories are made from—the solid proof of stones and bones, alongside more ephemeral tools such as books and films.

Ellie Ga is a New York-born artist based in Stockholm, Sweden. Her performances and video installations weave narratives across wide spans of research, braiding together stories from her own life and archives she meanders through around the world. In Quarries, Ga’s steady, captivating voice entices viewers to traverse a path composed of seemingly disparate shards of conversations, events, and fleeting images that accumulate into a mosaic that links the human hand and its tools with the capacity for resistance. The film visits stonemasons in Lisbon, archivists of prehistoric stone tools from Kenya, and the artist’s own brother as he struggles to regain the use of his hands.

Liv Bugge is a Norwegian artist based in Oslo. Raised in a family that participated in sled dog racing, Bugge spent her early life learning to communicate and collaborate with lives and life cycles beyond the human, at the same time that Norway was experiencing a boom in the oil industry. For her film Goliat, Draugen & Maria, Bugge invited a group of collaborators to interact directly with crude oil, a substance derived from the fossils of ancient marine life. In the film, each participant holds drops of the brown, silky substance, meditating on both the physical feeling and the larger social and political history of oil in Norway, and around the world. The mesmerizing film also features historical footage created by oil companies working in the area, and is named for the three oilfields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf that have publicly available geodata; in some presentations, the film is accompanied by sculptures of the oilfields’ topography.

Ancient History is organized by Melanie Kress, Curator of High Line Art.

Artist bio

Liv Bugge (b. 1974, Oslo, Norway) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. She has presented her work in exhibitions and screenings at institutions including the Artists’ House and Intercultural Museum in Oslo, Norway (2022); Marabouparken Konsthall in Stockholm, Sweden (2019); Kunsthall Trondheim, Trondheim, Oslo (2018); Goethe Institute, Sao Paolo, Brazil (2011); Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2010); and Sørlandets Kunstmuseum in Kristiansand, Norway (2005). She has participated in major international exhibitions including the 59th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2022) and Gothenburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Gothenburg, Sweden (2019).

Ellie Ga (b. 1976, New York, New York) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. She has presented her work in exhibitions and screenings at institutions including Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2022); Henry Art Gallery, Portland, Oregon (2020); The Foreman Art Gallery, Bishop’s College, Quebec, Canada (2020); New York Film Festival, New York (2022), International Film Festival Marseille (2022, 2019), Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York (2018); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2018). She has participated in major international exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial of American Art, New York, New York (2019) and Nordic Biennial, Moss, Norway (2011). Ga was a recipient of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship in film-video.


Support

Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and Charina Endowment Fund. Project support is provided by Charlotte Feng Ford and Vivian and James Zelter. Additional support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams.