Sam Taylor-Johnson

2002 Sam Taylor-Wood short video art piece featuring a man playing an imaginary string instrument.

1996 Sam Taylor-Wood video art piece focusing on a naked singer

1999 Sam Taylor-Wood video art piece featuring a dancer in agony

Music

2003 Sam Taylor-Wood video art work featuring a tap dancer

A 10 minute film that depicts a man and a woman having an argument. This domestic drama is enacted simultaneously on two separate projected screens—the man’s space is described by a chair standing against a blank wall, the woman’s by a fridge and a fragment of kitchen sideboard. Each participant is isolated within his and her own screen, the borders from one to the other being crossed by thrown objects such as a glass of milk or a frying pan and, occasionally, by one of the participants, who, unable to contain their rage, launches an attack across the divide. A soundtrack of tuning into a series of different radio stations accompanies the film, seeming to articulate the switching emotional tenor of the scenario as it moves through confusion, anger, sadness and resignation.

Sam Taylor-Wood says she can't believe the silly questions that people keep asking about her latest work, presented in the Ukrainian pavilion. That White Rush is a video of a young woman lying naked with a white swan decomposing on top of her; her toe twitches as the swan's internal liquids spew out. It is made up of two seamlessly integrated films, one taken of the girl over four minutes and one of the swan over four weeks. "People actually ask me if the girl lay there for four weeks," says Taylor-Wood.

Reminiscent of Warhol, Breach depicts a girl in ever-heightening grief, but with the sound of her tears removed. The person inflicting her agony is also unheard and unseen, but has a tangible presence in the film. As emotion is taken out of context, the viewer is almost placed in the position of the aggressor. The tangible melts into the intangible and the other way around.

A string quartet, dressed in black tie, seated in an arc that curves away from the viewer, play part of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 2 in F major Op. 22. The piece is titled Andante ma non Tanto (which, crudely translated, means faster, but not too much). They sit in the sumptuous surroundings of the Crush Room at the Royal Opera House, London. Above them suspended by wires, which flick in and out of view as the light catches them, is a ballet dancer. He is naked apart from shorts and the harness. The dancer rests just above the musicians' heads as they play Tchaikovsky's melancholic piece. The dancer moves rhythmically and slowly, his feet almost brushing their bows as they play. 35mm film. Single-screen projection.

Drama · Music

As four people lip-synch to the grand, passionate sounds of the Richard Strauss opera Elektra, the contrast between the banality of modern life and the primal desires that swirl beneath the surface is heightened. Four-screen projection. Video.

The interior monologues of five characters are made audible, giving way to a host of efforts on the part of the viewer to create connections or manufacture logic and pattern where, ultimately, there is none. 16mm film. Five-screen projection.

The graceful, ephemeral longing highlighted in this work is brought back down to earth with the title – after Van Halen's Jump. Single-screen projection.

The title of this piece is the well-known warning of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. It translates to Touch me not. This biblical scene gave birth to a strong iconographical tradition in Christian art, from late antiquity to present. Here, the denial of hope and redemption is removed from its religious context. 16mm film. Dual-screen projection.

In Sam Taylor-Johnson's words, 'I wanted (Atlantic) to feel like you could be coming in, as you say, at any point, not necessarily at the beginning, or the end, but somewhere towards the middle where something is about to happen. It could be the beginning of an argument or an argument petering out … the only thing those people have in common is the space they occupy. They are totally isolated within their own activity or mental space … you are looking at two people interacting but you project what the discussion or argument is about. The viewer is put in the position of the people in the restaurant who are onlookers. And as an onlooker you're straining to understand what exactly is taking place. I want people to construct their own narrative, so they're looking at it and giving it endless possibilities.' 16mm film. Three-screen projection.

As Harold Pinter famously said, Taylor-Johnson is 'the weasel under the cocktail cabinet' at this particular party. The erotic undercurrents between the various people at the party are given further resonance with the use of multiple screens to portray them. Marianne Faithfull is given a starring role, and the viewer is the 'third party' of the title. 16mm film. Seven-screen projection.

Documentary

Simply lit from one light source (the lamp in the Madrid hotel room where it was shot) and shot in a single long take after Beckham finished training, David joins Sam Taylor-Johnson's other intimate portraits of male vulnerability. Single-screen projection.