Village and Elsewhere: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, Jeff Koons’ Untitled, and Thai Villagers (2011)

Overview

The film is shot inside a prayer hall of a Buddhist temple. In the background of its single tableau shot, we see an enormous gold-framed reproduction of an untitled painting by Jeff Koons that is displayed frontally on the left side of the screen. Beside it, toward the right side of the screen, there is a reproduction of a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, which is encased in a matching gold frame equal in size to the one framing Koons's work. In the foreground, there are several rows of lively spectator-figures, children and neatly dressed older women - including Araya herself - all of whom are sitting with their backs to the camera on a fandango pink carpet facing the two reproductions. A figure stands next to the framed reproductions and faces the camera. He is a Buddhist monk who delivers a humorous, didactic sermon on the third Buddhist precept, the prohibition of sexual misconduct, using the images as visual aids.