Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

KUNSTVEREIN HANNOVER

Eija-Liisa Ahtila's short films are brutally poetic reports on family relations, sexuality, and death. Fantasies and daydreams of enigmatic teens unfold in human dramas that play on the conventions of documentary and fiction film. Shown in art galleries and museums as large-scale video installations, the work loses some of its bite. But seen in movie theaters or on TV (as many of these pieces were in Ahtila's native Finland) in the form of anarchic inserts between trailers or advertisements, they disrupt the flow of commercial narrative. Organized by the Kunstverein's Silke Boerma, this first retrospective of Ahtila's work presents film, video, and photography. Nov. 20-Dec. 31, 1999.