Group Show: Killers and Their Hiding Places

Miami, September 1, 2007): World Class Boxing, an exhibition space that houses and exhibits the Debra and Dennis Scholl collection, invites Miami artist Natalia Benedetti to choose from their collection and present an exhibition. The result is Killers and Their Hiding Places, a selection of works including painting, photography, sculpture and digital media. Benedetti decided to pick works that illustrate her fascination with Horror films, websites such as Rotten Dot Com and stories of Serial Killers. She incorporated early and recent acquisition of both well known and emerging artists. The exhibition opens Saturday, September 8, 7-10pm and closes October 15. Open by appointment.

Debra and Dennis Scholl, renowned Miami-based collectors, have been inviting curators to interact with their collection for the past ten years. Benedetti has assisted Dennis and Debra since 2002 with various installations from their collection and many other projects. "My first job with the Scholls was to pull video stills that were printed in the publication for Imperfect Innocence, since that day we became friends and they have invited me to interact with the collection in many different ways. I find it to be the most dynamic collection in Miami, and it has been very exiting to witness the shift from photography to all other mediums. Killers and Their Hiding Places is comprised of my favorite scary works which are also some of the works that I would collect myself."

Artists selected from the collection include Tara Donovan, Paul Chan, Adam Helms, Olafur Eliasson, Trisha Donnelley, Jim Lambie, and Douglas Gordon. "We invited natalia to curate a show because of her intimate knowledge of every work in the collection. Her selection is based upon a number of years of being surrounded by the works and reflects her personal favorites and her own sensibility and practice as a visual artist." says Dennis Scholl.

NATALIA BENEDETTI Was born February 4, 1977, in Caracas Venezuela. At the age of 15 she moved to Miami Florida where she later received a Bachelors in Fine Art from the New World School of the Arts (2000). Since then, she has focused in creating video based-work, which has been included in museum exhibitions such as Miami in Transition (2006) at the Miami Art Museum, J'en rêve (2005) at Foundation Cartier pour L’art Contemporain in Paris France, Transitory Patterns: Florida / Women Artists (2004) at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, Paradise Lost? Aspects of Landscape in Latin American Art (2001) at the Lowe Art Museum in the University of Miami Making Art in Miami: Travels in Hyperreality (2000) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. In 2003 she was the recipient of the South Florida Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists. Benedetti had her first solo show in 2002 at the Galerie Fons Welters in Amsterdam and her first museum solo exhibition in 2006 at the Museum of Contemporary Art @ Goldman Warehouse in Miami FL.

Killers and Their Hiding Places is Benedetti’s second endeavor as a curator. She first curated Brought Together Again, a 2005 alumni exhibition at the New World School of the Arts.

World Class Boxing, a former, boxing gym, is an exhibition space displaying the contemporary art collection of Debra and Dennis Scholl. Prior exhibitions include shows by Olafur Eliasson, Simon Straling, Julie Mehretu, Paul Chan, Mark Bradford and Tammy Ben Tor.

World Class Boxing
170 NW 23rd Street, Miami, Fl 33127
305 438 9908
info@worldclassboxing.org

TEXT PRINTED IN THE BROCHURE

1A. INT. (MONTAGE)

NIGHTMARE MUSIC THEME begins as we FADE UP on a SERIES OF SHOTS, all CLOSE and teasing.

-- A man's FEET, in shabby work shoes, stalking through a junk bin in a dark, fire-lit, ash-dusted place. A huge BOILER ROOM is what it is, although we only glimpse it piecemeal. Then we SEE a MAN'S HAND, dirty and nail-bitten, reach INTO FRAME and pick up a piece of METAL.

-- ANOTHER ANGLE as the HAND grabs a grimey WORKGLOVE and slashes at it with a straight razor, until its fingertips are off.

-- CLOSE ON SAME HANDS dumping four fishing knives out of a filthy bag. Their blades are thin, curved, gleaming sharp.

-- MORE ANGLES, EVEN CLOSER. We can HEAR the MAN's wheezing BREATHING, but we still haven't seen his face. We never will. We just SEE more metal being assembled with crude tools, into some sort of linkage -- a splayed, spidery sort of apparatus, against a background light of FIRE, and a deep rushing of STEAM and HEAVY, DARK ENERGY.

-- And then we see this linkage attached to the glove.

-- Then the BLADES attached to all of it.

-- Then the MAN'S HAND slips into this glove-like apparatus, filling it out and transforming it into an awesome, deadly claw-hand with four razor/talons gleaming at its blackened fingertips. Suddenly the HAND arches and STRIKES FORWARD, SLASHING THROUGH a DARK CANVAS, tearing it to shreds.

1. EXT. LOS ANGELES. NIGHT. (2nd Unit)

A PULSATION OF LIGHT AND SHADOW. MUSIC DROPS AWAY to a hushed RUSHING OF WIND and DISTANT SIRENS. CAMERA RACKS INTO FOCUS on a HIGH PANORAMA of the San Fernando Valley, its night sky lit from within by a strange GREENISH LIGHT. TITLES BEGIN.

CAMERA TILTS DOWN and ZOOMS SWIFTLY into the valley's web of light.

CUT TO:

2. INT. CONCRETE PASSAGEWAY.

TITLES CONTINUE as TINA GRAY, a strong girl of fifteen in a thin night shift, moves towards us down a dark concrete corridor. Her steps quicken as TITLES appear in the portion of frame she leaves free.

A subliminal COLLAGE of SOUND threads in and out of the MUSIC. Distant insane LAUGHTER. Slamming iron DOORS. A bleating animal CRY. A LAMB, white and blank-faced, skitters across her path and on into the dark. No reason why it's there.

Then another SOUND, much nearer -- the slithering SCRAPE of something like fingernails across slate. It sets our teeth on edge, twists the MUSIC, and sends TINA running.

3. INT. BOILER ROOM.

Suddenly TINA's a tiny figure running among huge boilers steam pipes and catwalks -- a shadowed forest of iron and stone. She stops, listening intently as the SOUND of tiny hooves suddenly turns into the rattle of DISTANT RAIN.

Then she hears RIPPING FABRIC.

Someone is shouldering behind a ragged screen of dirty canvas, approaching TINA.

CLOSER ON THE CANVAS. The long curved fingerblades suddenly punch through, flashing in the firelight, and begin ripping through the thick fabric, as easily as scalpels through flesh. They make a hideous, extended RIPPING SOUND.

TINA rushes away, hands over her ears.

ANOTHER ANGLE -- as the blinded girl stumbles backwards. Then the canvas flaps free. The blades are gone. The TITLES END, and everything goes silent.

CAMERA CIRCLES until TINA's looking right into our eyes. The light from a nearby boiler pours through her thin night dress, leaving her naked and vulnerable. Then a deep, ragged VOICE whispers at her as CAMERA CLOSES IN ON HER FACE.

VOICE (O.S.)
One two, Freddie's coming for you...

TINA opens her mouth to scream but only a dry, yellow dust pours out. And at that precise moment a huge shadowy MAN with a grimey red and yellow sweater and a weird hat pulled over his scarred face lunges at her. And it's his fingers that are tipped with the long blades of steel, glinting in the boney light and giving the hulk the look of an otherworldly predator.

TINA dodges away, her legs suddenly elephantine and slow. The MAN seizes the trailing hem of her nightgown and hauls her back.

The MUSIC shrieks as TINA manages to tear free -- the MAN lurches after her with a hoarse SHOUT as we --

SMASH CUT TO:

4. INT. TINA'S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

TINA convulses in bed with a SCREAM, looking around wildly. Someone is KNOCKING on her door.

WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.) You okay, Tina?

TINA'S MOTHER sticks her head in with a worried look. TINA sits up and blows out a breath, groggy.

TINA
Just a dream, Ma...
(more to herself)
Damn dream, is all...

Segment from Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET