Ante Bozanich: Selected Works

1974-80, 31:05 min, b&w and color, sound
1974, 2:15 min, b&w, sound
 
1976, 3:57 min, b&w, sound
 
1976, 2:55 min, b&w, sound
 
1977, 6:04 min, b&w, sound
 

These early works are raw, often primal expressions of anguish and alienation. Bozanich directly confronts the viewer, using the immediacy and intimacy of video as a psychodramatic construct.

In the evocative Return, Bozanich stares into the camera as shifting light and layered glimpses of imagery function like memory fragments. I am the Light explodes with an intensity of focused aggression. Alone before the camera, his face distorted by grimaces and expressionistic lighting, Bozanich hurls insults, obscenities and pleas in a dramatic confrontation with the viewer. In Susan in the Window, the image of a woman's face behind a sheer veil of curtain is permeated with erotic tension and mystery, as a shifting light alternately reveals and obscures her.

With its sinister and grotesque imagery, Bands is the most powerful and brutal of these early works. Starkly lit and isolated before the camera, Bozanich straps rubber bands across his face, distorting and slicing his flesh until it bleeds. The artist's self-mutilation becomes an emblematic howl of pain and despair.