Cécile B. Evans

Evans attended New York University for acting in method acting and experimental theatre.{{Cite web|url=http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/aug/14/artist-profile-cecile-b-evans/|title=Artist Profile: Cecile B. Evans|website=Rhizome|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Evans worked as an actress until they started making art. As an actress, Evans also worked as a makeup artist in various department stores, along with bartending, waitressing, and being a secret food critic. They moved from New York to Paris to Berlin throughout their adulthood, and has now settled in London.{{Cite web|url=http://bb9.berlinbiennale.de/participants/evans/|title=Berlin Biennale {{!}} Cécile B. Evans|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-18}}

Evans has been active in many solo and group exhibitions over the years, and is well known for their pieces "Hyperlinks or it Didn't Happen" (2014) and "What the Heart Wants" (2016). These works have been shown as installations and screened. Evans' first large project, "Hyperlinks or it Didn't Happen" has been exhibited at the Projections New York Film Festival,{{Cite web|url=https://www.filmlinc.org/films/projections-2015-program-9/|title=Projections Program 9 {{!}} New York Film Festival|website=Film at Lincoln Center|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Seventeen Gallery,{{Cite web|url=http://www.seventeengallery.com/exhibitions/cecile-b-evans-hyperlinks/|title=Cécile B. Evans - Hyperlinks|website=Seventeen|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-10-18}} Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art,{{Cite web|url=https://www.mcasantabarbara.org/exhibition/then-they-form-us/|title=Then They Form Us|website=Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-18}} Artspace,{{Cite web|url=https://www.artspace.org.au/program/public-programs/2015/performance-lecture-c%25C3%25A9cile-b-evans/|title=Performance Lecture {{!}} Cécile B. Evans|website=ArtSpace|access-date=2019-10-18}} Sydney Biennale, and Garage Museum.{{Cite web|url=https://garagemca.org/en/event/special-screening-of-c-cile-b-evans-films-hyperlinks-or-it-didn-t-happen-and-how-happy-a-thing-can-be|title=Special screening of Cécile B. Evans films Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen and How Happy a Thing Can Be|website=Garage|access-date=2019-10-18}} "How Happy a Thing Can Be" (2014), another video made the same year, was co-commissioned by Wysing Arts Centre and RADAR/Loughborough University.{{Cite web|url=https://radar.lboro.ac.uk/artists/ccile-b-evans/|title=Radar - Cécile B. Evans|website=radar.lboro.ac.uk|access-date=2019-10-18}} It has been exhibited in Art Basel,{{Cite web|url=https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/67134/How-Happy-a-Thing-can-be|title=How Happy a Thing can be|website=Art Basel|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Kunsthalle Wien,{{Cite web|url=http://kunsthallewien.at/social/|title=Home|website=kunsthallewien.at|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}}{{Dead link|date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Whitney Museum,{{Cite web|url=https://www.whitney.org/artists/17585|title=Cécile B. Evans|website=www.whitney.org|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Ural Industrial Biennial,{{Cite web|url=https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/146382/4th-ural-industrial-biennial-of-contemporary-artnew-literacy/|title=4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art: New Literacy - Announcements - e-flux|website=www.e-flux.com|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} and CentroCentro (ARCO). Evans' project, "What the Heart Wants" was included in the Berlin Bienniale, Artspace, the GARAGE Museum, and Kunsthalle Winterthur.{{Cite web|url=http://moussemagazine.it/cecile-b-evans-kunsthalle-winterthur-2016/|title=Cécile B. Evans "What the Heart Wants" at Kunsthalle Winterthur •|date=2016-09-16|website=Mousse Magazine|language=it-IT|access-date=2019-10-18}} Evans' work, Amos' World (2018) has been exhibited at places such as Mumok,{{Cite web|url=https://www.mumok.at/en/events/cecile-b-evans|title=Cécile B. Evans|website=www.mumok.at|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Tramway,{{Cite web|url=https://www.art-agenda.com/features/257057/ccile-b-evans-s-amos-world|title=Cécile B. Evans's "Amos' World" - Features - art-agenda|website=www.art-agenda.com|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Château Shatto,{{Cite web|url=https://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2019/02/cecile-b-evans-at-chateau-shatto/|title=Cécile B. Evans at Château Shatto (Contemporary Art Daily)|website=www.contemporaryartdaily.com|access-date=2019-10-18}} and Madre Museum.{{Cite web|url=http://www.madrenapoli.it/en/exhibition/cecile-b-evans/|title=Cécile B. Evans|website=Madre Napoli|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-18}} Evans has also been the recipient of a number or art awards, including the Frieze Art Fair's Emdash Award (2012),{{Cite web|url=https://frieze.com/fair-programme/emdash-award-2012|title=Emdash Award 2012|website=frieze.com|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Palais de Tokyo/Orange's Push Your Art Prize (2013),{{Cite web|url=https://www.palaisdetokyo.com/en/event/push-your-art|title=Push your art|date=2016-05-26|website=Palais de Tokyo EN|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}} Schering Stiftung (2016),{{Cite web|url=https://scheringstiftung.de/en/programm/kultur/foerderprojekte/cecile-b-evans-im-rahmen-der-9-berlin-biennale/|title=What the Heart Wants – Schering Stiftung|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-18}} illy Present Future Prize (2016),{{Cite web|url=https://www.artissima.art/en/cecile-b-evans-wins-the-illy-present-future-prize-2016/|title=Cécile B. Evans wins the illy Present Future Prize 2016|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-10-18}} and is shortlisted for the Jarman Award (2019).{{Cite web|url=http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/evans|title=FLAMIN - Cécile B. Evans|website=flamin.filmlondon.org.uk|access-date=2019-10-18}}

In 2024, Miuccia Prada commissioned Evans with creating Reception!, a short AI-generated film which served as the backdrop for the Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2024–25 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.Angelica Villa (5 March 2024), [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/miuccia-prada-cecile-b-evans-paris-fashion-week-miu-miu-1234698962/ Miuccia Prada Taps Video Artist Cécile B. Evans for Installation at Paris Fashion Week] ARTnews.

• "What the Heart Wants" (2016) is video installation that looks at what it could mean to be human, and who or what will be considered human, in the future.
• "Hyperlinks or it Didn't Happen" (2014) is a video about a group of digital beings that search for their meaning.{{Cite web|url=https://artlead.net/content/journal/cecile-b-evans-hyperlinks-or-it-didnt-happen-2014/|title=VIDEO: Cécile B. Evans - Hyperlinks or It Didn't Happen, 2014 {{!}} artlead|website=artlead.net|language=en|access-date=2019-10-18}}
• "How Happy a Thing Can Be" (2014) is a short video that follows a screwdriver, scissors and comb as their emotional limits are pushed.
• "Sprung a Leak" (2016) is an automated play performed by three robots and three humans as they cope with emotionally charged information leaking from a system that surrounds them.{{Cite web|url=http://moussemagazine.it/cecile-b-evans-sprung-leak-m-museum-leuven-2017/|title=Cécile B. Evans "Sprung a Leak" at M – Museum Leuven •|date=2017-11-03|website=Mousse Magazine|language=it-IT|access-date=2019-10-18}}
• "Amos' World" (2018) is a mock TV series and video installation about an architect, his "socially progressive housing estate", and the inhabitants who are quickly alienated by the building. Chris Sharratt writes that it "is not a didactic unpicking of modernist thinking and aesthetics. Instead, the exhibition acts as an allegory for a recurring concern in Evans's work: 'how digital technology impacts the human condition.'... a tale of individual hubris brought to heel by collective resistance, of lost souls finding networked ways to turn solitary grievances into communal action.".
• Reality or Not (2023) takes on the reality tv format and follows a group of Parisian teenagers interested in forging their own world and opportunities. Reality or Not is being included in Worlds Apart, a video exhibition at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, in 2025.{{Cite web |title=Worlds Apart • Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/exhibition/worlds-apart/ |access-date=2025-02-05 |website=Pérez Art Museum Miami |language=en-US}}

"What the Heart Wants" (2016) was first exhibited in November 2016 and was also Evans first museum exhibition.{{Cite web|url=https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/en/art/what-the-heart-wants/|title=What the heart wants|website=Frans Hals Museum|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-11-01}} It is Evans' most extensive piece to date. Evans examines a future timeline in which technology is the basis of society and the lines between humanity and robot have become extremely blurred, as well as how they shape each other.{{Cite web|url=http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/cecile-b.-evans-what-the-heart-wants|title=Cécile B. Evans: What The Heart Wants|website=thisistomorrow|language=en|access-date=2019-11-01}} The main character, HYPER, narrates what it means to be a person over the course of the 41- minute film.{{Cite web|url=http://bb9.berlinbiennale.de/participants/evans/|title=Berlin Biennale {{!}} Cécile B. Evans|language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-01}} Unlimited power has been given to a company that has control over personal information, and has taken the form of a woman (HYPER). She has become "human", and struggles with the subjective nature of the world. Evans uses topics such as stem cell research, dress codes, terrorism, systemic oppression, and other large organizational structures to discuss this idea.{{Cite web|url=http://moussemagazine.it/cecile-b-evans-kunsthalle-winterthur-2016/|title=Cécile B. Evans "What the Heart Wants" at Kunsthalle Winterthur •|date=2016-09-16|website=Mousse Magazine|language=it-IT|access-date=2019-11-01}} The film also shows both the progress and problems that have arisen in society as time has passed, and based on the choices people and organizational systems have made. The film follows other obscure characters, such as a large collection of ears, pair of lovers, an immortal cell, and a robot, as they explore what it means to be a human. Some characters from past works of Evans' appear as well (AGNES, PHIL, Invisible Woman).

Evans' work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art,{{cite web|url=https://www.whitney.org/artists/17585|title=Cécile B. Evans|website=www.whitney.org}} Castello di Rivoli, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art{{cite web|url=https://www.adbk.de/en/lehrangebot/lehrangebot-liste/85-cx-centrum-fuer-interdisziplinaere-studien/gastprofessoren/1737-projectclass-c%C3%A9cile-b-evans.html|title=Akademie der Bildenden Künste München - Projectclass Cécile B. Evans|website=adbk.de}} and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.{{cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/212956|title=Cécile B. Evans. What the Heart Wants. 2016 - MoMA|website=The Museum of Modern Art}}

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• [http://cecilebevans.com/ Official website]

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Category:1983 births

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century Belgian women artists

Category:21st-century American women artists

Category:Belgian installation artists

Category:Belgian contemporary artists

Category:Belgian video artists

Category:Belgian multimedia artists

Category:American women installation artists

Category:American women video artists