Tova Mozard, The Comedy Store and Other Stories, photography, video, 5 March–18 April 2015

Cecilia Hillström Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition with Tova Mozard. Her new work circles around The Comedy Store in West Hollywood. The old nightclub – now a world famous scene for stand-up comedy – transforms into an uncanny, empty place in Mozard’s photographs. 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.

Read more about the artist here.

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger

Tova Mozard, The Comedy Store and Other Stories, photography, video, 5 March–18 April 2015
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