video killed not only the radio star, but my appetite as well (for the most part)
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I have to admit, it very well may be my own damned fault. I over-inundated myself with too much of the same (but not exactly the same) at pretty much the same time. I attended three shows, count them THREE, featuring video as a medium. One at Women & Their Work, one at Arthouse and another at O.K. Mountain. It was kind of like having Thai food for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. And as much as I love Thai food....
Let me start off my saying that W&TW is probably my favorite Artspace in Austin. They consistently have well curated shows with very talented artists. That being said, their show about different ideas of marriage, didn't show me very much that I wasn't already expecting from the title. But, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed some of the work.
The one piece that really spoke to me was "Conversations" by Marianela Vega Oroza in which she edited an audio recorded "letter," sent to her by her mother. The audio of her mother speaking about marriage and family, is interwoven with old family photos that Oroza received along with the audio tape. The artist also includes footage of herself as she has a dialogue with/ about her mother's recording. There are parallel's drawn between her own age and the age at which her mother was not only married, but giving birth to the artist herself. Vega seems to question her own life through her mother's eyes and as the video ends, we learn that her mother is leaving her father after all these years, and Vega is taking a photo of herself; the camera timer sounding very much like a biological clock. There were also memorable pieces such as "Marriage is for White People" by Cauleen Smith which was multi-split screen video representation a la Brady Bunch, in which different people espouse their views of precisely what the title says. Also of some interest is "Fifty Brides on a Fire Escape." Although it's title much like the title of the show itself gives it all away before you even see it.
collage contains image from Daniel Bozhkov's "Darth Vader Tries to Clean the Black Sea With a Brita Filter." Next, I walked over to Arthouse and was able to catch a portion of artist Daniel Bozhkov's presentation to a packed house of attentive audience members. Even if I had not been able to do so, each installation in the show has more than adequate documentation on each offering, which are documentation in and of themselves. Bozhkov is all about research and process. Mind you, his work is much more interesting than that last statement sounds. In fact, I enjoyed his work so much, my whole Thai food analogy has to go out the window. Even though, in my opinion, the whole show is successful on many levels, there were two performance/ installations that stood out and elicited something in me..what was it... oh yeah, interest. One was a photo documentation of a performance he did entitled "Darth Vader tries to clean the Black Sea with Brita Filter." The photo, which is displayed in the front window of Arthouse, is of the Bulgarian artist himself dressed as the Star Wars villain attempting to do just that. The largest installation was entitled "Learn How to Fly Over a Very Large Larry." The Larry being a large crop circle formation in the shape of Larry King. Bozhkov says that the act of making the large Larry as well as the large Larry himself are but the pebble that caused the ripples that are actually the piece. And, the ripples are included in the space. There are paintings of individuals involved, as well as a specially made couch which depending upon where you sit, changes your perspective, literally. On one side you seem like a giant, on the other, an incredibly shinking...well you get the picture. As you sit on the couch, you watch multiple televisions displaying the aforementioned "ripples", i.e. Larry King himself discussing the crop circle, local news coverage, as well as footage of the making of it. The artist referred to the titles in the show as "wishes". There is a latent hopeful environmentalism in his work that doesn't grab you by the throat, but then again, if someone grabbed you by the throat would you be prone to really listening to/ taking on their views?
Finally, I ended up at O.K. Mountain to wrap up the day. And low and behold, video art! Although, again I was over-saturated with video at this point, so I probably didn't give this show as much of a chance as I should have. I have been working on my personal art web site quite a bit lately, and in the process have been re-examining my older works, some of which are early attempts at video. It's been painful swallowing their clunky awkwardness and too, too serious nature. I've found myself probably unfairly, using those old pieces as comparison for what I saw at O.K. mountain (and not seeing too much difference.) Granted, the show was titled "Videoperformance", so I was also expecting a bit more live physical interaction by the artists with the video, so yet again, that could be my fault. By far, the most intriguing thing I saw was Laurel Nakadate's wall projected piece in which older men were in strangely "sexual" situations with her. I remember being so enthralled when I first encountered video art in college through the work of Nam June Paik . It was both his amazing manipulation of the sacred medium as well as his transformations of the monitors and sets themselves that captured my attention and would not let go. Somehow, I didn't feel that at O.K. I will have to go back when I've had a break from the tube. I'm just hoping that will be enough to keep me from grabbing the remote and switching it off again. Is it all me? Could be. Great, now I'm craving Thai. • |
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