Artist Reception: Saturday, March 7th | 5pm–8pm

Municipal Bonds is pleased to present “Talking About Adultery,” a solo exhibition of multimedia works by Bara Jichova Tyson. Questioning what it means to be in a committed relationship—by exploring themes of love and desire, commitment and infidelity—Jichova Tyson constructs her inquiry in two complementary parts: a series of unique photo collages and a hybrid documentary feature film.

Jichova Tyson understands relationships as being a constant reassembly of different parts: elements of personality, history, beliefs, values, culture, memory, experience, geography—all of which change over time. Alongside, she is inherently interested in the possibility/impossibility of trust between people, and the imaginary stories people tell themselves to justify how they live, who they are, and who they want to be.

In her collages, Jichova Tyson reconstitutes photographs of her childhood in former Czechoslovakia. She hand-cuts and configures these very personal images into an abstraction of her familial narrative; dissecting images of herself, her parents, and grandparents, she then reconstructs faces, places, and moments. Jichova Tyson’s collages express a time, both in history and in her family, when love and trust were deeply affected by the historical moment—transforming what it meant to be faithful and what it meant to be free.

In one of many ties between her collages and film, the titles of the collages are quotes pulled from the film, imbuing the imagery with an added connotation. Similar to her collages, Jichova Tyson’s filmmaking process depends on experimenting with different kinds of editing, layering, and juxtaposition. And going full circle, her process of creating the collages is a key part of her film.

Jichova Tyson’s film, bearing the same title as this exhibition, premiered as an official selection at the 2019 Sheffield Doc/Fest. It is based on ethnographic interviews with lovers, husbands, wives, mistresses, and also participants in non-traditional and polyamorous relationships, which Jichova Tyson recorded, purposely anonymously, during a period of five years. The film explores the hunger to find fulfillment through acts of committing to—and straying from—our partners, and how the secrets we keep—and the lies we tell—in our search for love and desire reveal who we are. It is also the story of Jichova Tyson's own unexpected transformation, as she discovers her future husband through the process of making the work.

Bara Jichova Tyson (b. 1977, former Czechoslovakia) is a New York-based artist and filmmaker. Her feature hybrid documentary film, Talking About Adultery, premiered as an official selection at the 2019 Sheffield Doc/Fest, and was nominated for the New Talent Award. The film has since been selected by notable festivals in the US and Europe, including 2019 DOC NYC in New York and 2019 Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in Jihlava, Czech Republic. Jichova Tyson's feature film, Organ Player, which she co-wrote and co-edited (directed by Narcissister), was selected for the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Prior, she edited the feature documentary film, Instructions on Parting (directed by Amy Jenkins), which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 2018 Doc Fortnight.

Her short documentary film, The Hatch House, won best short experimental documentary at the 2016 Fine Arts Film Festival (FAFF) in Venice, California, and was an official selection of the 2019 Film Architektura in Prague, 2016 Architecture and Design Film Festival in New York City and Los Angeles, and the 2016 American Documentary Film Festival (AmDocs) in Palm Springs. In 2019, Municipal Bonds included Jichova Tyson’s series of collage works based on The Hatch House in its inaugural show at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco.

Jichova Tyson has exhibited her 2D work and photography in solo and group shows, including at the Greene Naftali Gallery, Salon Ciel, BBLA, and Pocket Utopia—all in New York. In 2013, she co-produced and edited Built on Narrow Land, a feature documentary directed by Malachi Connolly, about Bauhaus architecture on Cape Cod. She was art director of Now, Forager, a feature film by Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin, which was part of the 2012 New Directors/New Films Festival organized jointly by MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The film was a nominee for the Gotham Independent Film Awards, and had a worldwide release.

Jichova Tyson studied fine art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, and received her BFA at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. She is a 2016 recipient of The MacDowell Colony Fellowship. “Talking About Adultery” is her second exhibition at Municipal Bonds.

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