Streamed online July 14 through July 20
Centering the perspectives of young women, in Girls / Museum American artist Shelly Silver interviews students from local schools in Leipzig, Germany, about their reactions to figurative works of art on view from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (MdbK). Most of the artists whose work is on view are identified as male. The majority of the young women are German born, while some identify as refugees and immigrants from Afghanistan, Syria, and parts of eastern Europe. Several express active disinterest in or rejection of binary gender identification for themselves. According to Silver, “they often reference personal feelings and histories, because when one speaks of art one is also speaking about oneself. Through their discourses, the film explores a wide-ranging territory which expands out from the art works to power, history, identity, the questioning or repeating of accepted values, and the need for change. The film is held in the tension between looking back and building forward.” (Shelly Silver, 2021, 74 minutes).