Preemptive Disappearance: Francisca Benitez

Preemptive Disappearance, Francisca Benitez. Video, Colour, Sound, 14 min, CL/USA, 2003 Francisca Benitez’s Preemptive Disappearance, describes the effects of the Patriot Act on artists living in New York as told through the tender recounting of someone who discovers, when returning home one day, that her husband has been arrested for taking photographs ‘in the wrong place’. Benitez’s film slowly draws us into the emotional turmoil and sense of loss that is felt when someone close to you disappears and allows us a powerful and dramatic insight into the personal insecurity suffered by many people after 9/11. Francisca Benitez recently exhibited work at the Westport Arts Centre, Connecticut, Exit Art, New York, Smack Mellon, New York, Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona, Valenzuela Klenner Galería, Bogotá and at the Storefront for Art & Architecture, New York. She was born in Chile and lives and works in New York. DVD 2 includes the featurette 'Interview with Francisca Benitez' with Katie Guggenheim and Dan Smith, directed by Gordon Shrigley.