Do you remember your first time you saw dry ice? Mine was in a punch bowl as part of a Halloween school dance. There was something inherently magical about the material; when I first encountered it I kept blinking, waiting for what looked like an illusion to reveal itself. Watching Judy Chicago’s revival of ‘Disappearing Environments as Sublime Environment’ revives that initial excitement and gives it poetic understanding. Chicago teamed up with Materials & Applications to revive her 1968 ‘Disappearing Environments as Sublime Environment’ performance, originally by Chicago, Lloyd Hamrol, and Eric Orr. The piece consisted of 25 tons of dry ice into pyramid formations that shrouded the surrounding environment in a hazy fog. At sunset, the installation was incited with road flares and left to disintegrate over the following four days until it disappeared.

Chicago described the medium of dry ice as “a metaphor for the preciousness of life.” The performance piece alters the landscape of the Santa Monica Barker Hanger, turning an airport structure into an outdoor dream laboratory in which an experiment had gone awry. The dry ice creations are a combination of architectural pyramids and apocalyptic wedding cakes. Continuing in Chicago’s language of confusing typically masculine and feminine fields, traditionally male pyrotechnic flares gave way to a pinkish rolling fog that softened and feminized the landscape. The piece was a stunning addition to the Art Los Angeles Contemporary art fair, and can be seen in all its glory in the video below:

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

Comprising only a large installation at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Gabríela Friðriksdóttir’s Crepusculum – Latin for “twilight” or “dusk” – is a mixed-media, polyphonic, physical exploration of metaphysical structures that govern the human psyche, and speculates that an enigmatic and irrational system of signs, meanings and forms counterbalances the deceptively ordered exteriors of our existence.

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

Above all, it is an experiential and tactile show that prioritises evoking a multitude of emotions over engaging the intellect. A large, white spherical entity around which alchemic instruments are scattered sits on a pile of sand; music seems to leak out from all sides of the wall, surrounded by glass-protected ancient Icelandic calfskin parchments that record supernatural accounts of a medieval Scandinavian world inhabited by witches, trolls and dragons. The installation is populated with elemental components of the earth such as dust, dough, fire, blood, burlap and fur, but also overlaid with textures that are fur- or hair-roughened. An accompanying video bolsters the already-surreal installation as a narrator weaves a showy mythological universe with his droning words: a man guts slimy fish, a figure lithely unfolds itself out of clay “legs” and “helmet”, a figure wrapped in tattered cloths hikes laboriously across a sandy wasteland with another strapped to his back towards the self-same spherical entity.

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

Crepusculum’s allusive and mystical atmosphere appears to be as much a personal aesthetic journey as it is a collective memory of Iceland’s histories. Materially, the exhibition is about Friðriksdóttir’s continued creative experimentation with diverse materials and media that has been in part influenced by the breadth of Swiss/German Dieter Roth’s artistic processes and vocabulary. Friðriksdóttir’s starting point for Crepusculum is rooted in her own dreams – intangible tendrils of thoughts that bleed into each other are first allowed to drift unassisted into esoteric realms and subsequently thematically developed through a combination of simple sketches, sculpture and film. The overall effect is an imagistic universe comprising a choir of overlapping voices, an aggregate of signs and diverse earthy components, but it is hard to see beyond Crepusculum as an oracular endeavour to present nebulous connections to sexual psychology and pop culture while casting light on deconstructing traditional patterns of narratives located within Norse mythology .

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Crepusculum, 2011. Photo from Video, 29:00 mins / ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2011 Photo Jirí Hroník.

But Crepusculum is also Friðriksdóttir’s personal re-imagination of a time in Iceland when folklore, gods and magic were fundamental tenets of existence, and where elaborate stories of creation were punctuated by moments of horror, melancholy and unquestioning didacticism. Augmenting her exhibition are twelfth century manuscripts and almanacs loaned from the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík for the first time; such is the reinforcement of the historical investment in Iceland’s national cultural heritage and the revelation of the intense grip that these traditions and mythology still have on twenty-first century Icelandic culture. Perhaps then, for Friðriksdóttir, this is simultaneously a profound ambassadorial undertaking on behalf of the Icelandic people, a cultural burden so complex that it could only be presented in ambivalent spaces as metaphysical considerations.

***

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir: Crepusculum will be on show at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt until January 8, 2012.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art defies the normal boundary between landing and gallery at the entrance to the fourth floor space that houses Sharon Lockhart’s "Lunch Break," 2008. Photo: Saul Rosenfield, ©2011, with permission of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The stairway to the fourth floor of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art leads me directly toward a long, narrow, darkened space, at the end of which is the image of another, much longer, passageway. In that image, a concrete floor below and light fixtures above trace a trajectory toward infinity punctuated by pipes, wires, hoses, storage boxes, tools, and lockers. The scene is not monochrome—red, blue, yellow, orange, and green are common—nor is it dark, but the fluorescent lights, the faded floor, the absent windows, and the constrained path—no more than five feet wide—suggest that this as a place to travel through, not a place in which to settle.

This sensation is amplified by the fact that the image, I slowly realize, is moving. Inch-by-inch down the corridor, the slow-motion journey of what turns out to be Sharon Lockhart’s film, Lunch Break (2008), might be confused with a series of stills.

Still image from Sharon Lockhart, “Lunch Break (Assembly Hall, Bath Iron Works, November 5, 2007, Bath, Maine),” 2008; 35mm film transferred to HD, 80 min.; courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; © Sharon Lockhart.

Lockhart, who says she is interested in “duration,” describes her method of filmmaking as “photographic.”[1] Despite appearances, the film is not typical slow-motion; Lockhart has digitally inserted eight repetitions of each frame, ballooning a 10-minute, 1,200-foot traverse into an 80-minute encounter. It is a film engaged in repeating moments, in suspending, not slowing, time. It asks me, in effect, to witness the moment once, and then again, and then again. It proposes that I might answer the question “What do you see?” only by pondering yet another, “Do you see what you see?”

All of a sudden, a person moves, and I recognize the objects dangling off a storage bin down the corridor as human legs. In this otherworldly place, everything that seems obvious at conventional speed becomes a mystery, a puzzle to be solved only by the closest attention. A young man with short blond hair in a white jumpsuit raises his hand to his forehead, or more precisely, raises———–his———-hand———-to———-his———–forehead, where the hand rests for two minutes of my time, or only about 10 seconds of his time. His hand settles back in his lap, and he looks down. Is this a moment of despair? As the blond man turns toward me, I recognize a gently waving hand below him. The hand is speaking, and it is attached to the green hoodie of another man. I assume the co-workers are friends; I want them to be friends. There is something emphatic in the gesture of the green-shirted man, something that could be advice or reprimand. The blond man’s lips part briefly. Then he turns away and looks down for what seems to be an eternity. Is he pensive or despondent? His hand returns to his forehead. The camera inches onward, never turning. There in front of me, two distinctive characters in a distinct place have enacted a story with no ending, one of some two dozen the procession reveals. Were the men talking about a spouse, a boss, a co-worker, a sports team, or the union? Were they complaining or sharing a story? Was the hand to the head about despair, exhaustion, a thought, or an itch?

Installation View of Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, October 15,2011—January 16, 2012, showing entrance to the film screening gallery (left), the neighboring gallery with a series of lunch-related photographs, and a pile of Lunch Break Times—Bay Area Edition, the 24-page tabloid newspaper Lockhart produced in San Francisco for this show. Photo: Johnna Arnold Photography.

It turns out that although this place looks like a passageway, it functions as a destination, a place for moving in rather than moving through. The film documents shipbuilders at the Bath Iron Works in Maine during the moments when they are not building ships. The procession down the hallway reveals one “all of a sudden” after another, its repeating moments of apparent stillness both facilitating contemplation and kindling suspense. I cannot make out the messages of these subdued bodies: body language needs the fluidity of its natural pace to achieve clarity. Further, the slow-motion procession foils the normal capacity to anticipate a movement the moment before it happens. I cannot join the rhythm of life in the corridor, and everything—a woman biting a sandwich, a man microwaving popcorn, a hand brushing a knee—becomes a riddle. While ordinarily I might compensate for these limitations through closer inspection, I cannot manage this: the procession, while inching, is inexorable, and the camera’s wide-angle frontward gaze, while inclusive, is unyielding.

The beauty of Lunch Break is that its attenuated moments make it difficult to lock onto a single interpretation: the slow shifting disturbs the storyline, twists it into another shape. I cannot resolve what has happened between the two men, but the film incubates a dozen possible answers, confounding the normal snap of my judgments. I have witnessed not simply the recorded event, but also the event of my own wondering, the activity of my imagination, which is often unconscious, extending over time. Lockhart has found a way to viscerally demonstrate the elasticity of the temporal-spatial experience. The event of the two men has taken only five minutes of my time, the camera traversing only 50 feet of corridor. Yet, within these repeated moments and movements, Lockhart has packed the narrative of a short story, one of many in the bursting anthology that comprises Lunch Break.

Still image from Sharon Lockhart, “Lunch Break (Assembly Hall, Bath Iron Works, November 5, 2007, Bath, Maine),” 2008; 35mm film transferred to HD, 80 min.; courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; © Sharon Lockhart.

The word “duration” refers to the period of time it takes for an event to occur, but I cannot sever its kinship to “endurance.” Both words stem from durus, Latin for “hard.” As I sat down to watch Lunch Break, I intended to stay, to endure, but I anticipated that the 80-minute experience would demand a sacrifice that would exceed my capacities. SFMoMA Curator of Media Arts, Rudolf Frieling, says of the experience, “The viewer’s attention and perception are constantly at work,”[1] meaning that Lockhart’s film forces the viewer not only to attend to things that he or she might normally overlook, but also to attend to attention, to perceive perception happening. There were moments when this was exhausting. In fact, the film asks me to perform the very labor the workers will soon resume: a repetitive effort. It was, however, never boring.

Lockhart gets to the crux of the activity common to both workers and viewers: the skill, ingenuity, and variation at the core of undertakings usually dismissed as trivial or onerous simply because they are repetitive. I cannot claim that my attention never wavered, only that Lunch Break inevitably rewarded the patient process of discovery. If speed seems to be the bugaboo of our age, critiqued for its narcotic-like capacity to gratify a sensation-seeking society’s desire for stimulation, then slowness, particularly as it unfolds here, offers another avenue toward the great rumbling revelation of experience: an opening—one story after another—into the expansive world of the imagination.

Sharon Lockhart, “Dirty Don’s Delicious Dogs,” 2008; chromogenic print; 41 1/16 x 51 1/16 in. (left), and “Gary Gilpatrick, Insulator,” 2008; chromogenic print; 24 3/4 x 30 3/4 in. (right), both courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, Gladstone Gallery, New York, and neugerriemschneider, Berlin; © Sharon Lockhart

It seems accurate to say, as one description does, that “Lunch Break’s gradual passage through the aged factory offers a meditative and melancholic reflection on the architectural, social and phenomenological space of a notably anachronistic mode of industrialized labor.”[2] And I might easily reflect—as Lockhart did during her gallery talk—upon the bookends that coincidentally bracket Lunch Break’s making and showing: the real estate bubble’s pop in 2007, and the union rupture in Wisconsin and the Occupy movement, both in 2011. But what is it about the film itself—rather than my projections about its subject—that evokes melancholy? It is true that the corridor is filled neither with laughter nor even many smiles. One man stretches, perhaps relieving an ache; a woman stares, perhaps fatigued; many read silently, as unanimated as the figures in the Duane Hanson sculpture that initially inspired Lockhart.[3] It may well be that melancholy unavoidably surfaces in this claustrophobic underground world, but it may also be that the restraint and deliberation of Lockhart’s procession forces me to consider not only the practices of perception and attention, but also those of reflection and judgment. Although the film inevitably raises associations to the conditions of factory labor, I found myself suspending—far more often than reaching—easy conclusions.[4]

Lunch break, indeed.

[2]Harvard Film Archive “Timestage. The Cinema of Sharon Lockhart,” 2009 [accessed October 19, 2011]. ”Anachronistic” may reflect both an actual trend toward automation and, particularly in industries like shipbuilding, a fantasy of completely automated processes that discounts the persistence of human labor.

[3]Lockhart’s triptych, Lunch Break Installation, “Duane Hanson: Sculptures of Life,” 14, December – 23 February 2003, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2003), documented the installation of Hanson’s Lunch Break (Three Workers with Scaffold) (1989). Lockhart’s photographs of live workers installing fiberglass ones marked the beginning of the project that resulted in Lunch Break, the film.

[4]Among these associations are: contemporary globalization and the offshoring of manufacturing jobs; 19^th-century industrialization, the conditions of factory work, and, ironically, the increasing automation of manufacturing; and the work ethic itself.

John Smith, The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976, video still. Courtesy of the artist.

The East London artist and filmmaker has developed quite a following – one of his earliest works, The Girl Chewing Gum (1976), is a simple, yet brilliant narrative film that has spawned a host of online imitations and tributes. Smith’s version shows a street corner in Dalston, where an omnipresent voice directs the characters on camera – however it very quickly becomes apparent that the voice-over is postscripted, thereby disrupting the chain of cause and effect, and conflating fact and fiction. Laced with his notorious dry wit and anecdotal eccentricities, Smith destabilises the documentary form through his narration, driving our perception of the events through language, and exposing the conditions which determine how we read an image. The humour implicit in Smith’s films is derived from the unapologetic juxtaposition of what we know, and what he tells us – the pronounced gaps between the two rendered as sarcasm.

The assortment of homages and bootlegged versions of The Girl Chewing Gum which Smith has compiled over the years are included here within the exhibition, and inspired the artist to revisit the video himself – if everyone else could remake the video, why shouldn’t Smith do the same? Returning to the same street corner he filmed 35 years earlier, Smith traced his earlier movements to create The Man Phoning Mum (1976/2011). Layering the new footage directly on top of the original, Smith blurs the past and present creating a jarring vision of how drastically things have changed, and yet, how some things still remain the same.

John Smith, The Man Phoning Mum, 1976/2011, video still. Courtesy of the artist and PEER, London. Photo: Chris Dorley-Brown.

These individuals featured in Smith’s films – the girl with her gum, the man on the phone – become unsuspecting subjects in the narrative construction, much like the recent object of Smith’s fascination…

John Smith, unusual Red cardigan, lightbox text. Courtesy of the artist and PEER, London.

Smith’s Sherlockian investigation began by trying to piece together digital clues and culminated in bidding, winning and receiving various items from serenporfor’s eBay collection. Now in the gallery,  juxtaposed with the girl chewing gum, they are relics of an individual unaware that their discarded possessions have been recuperated as art. What can they tell us about serenpofor? What can we learn about an individual through that which they toss away? I do believe that Smith’s investigation into this particular case is far from over…

John Smith, unusual Red cardigan, installation view at PEER, London, 2011. Photo: Chris Dorley-Brown.

However, let this be a lesson leaned – when you enter the digital world, you forfeit a certain level of control. The amount of information that can be gleaned online is alarming. But then again, your image can be co-opted simply when walking down the street. Quite literally, there is nowhere to hide. I wonder what serenpofor would think if she googled herself?

Geof Oppenheimer, "Social Failure and Black Signs," 2010. Pigment print 34 x 24.8 inches; edition of 3. Image courtesy of Ratio 3.

Recently in the San Francisco Bay Area it has been impossible to walk down a street without running into (or trying to avoid) someone protesting something. The messages range from concise to ironic, sardonic to flat-out fed up. In the undulating sea of abridged manifestos, there is the rare message so poignant that it demands the sign-bearer’s cause receives deeper consideration. Geoff Oppenheimer’s current exhibit at Ratio 3 Gallery, Inside Us All There is a Part That Would Like to Burn Down Our Own House, presents a reductive, politically-driven narrative filled with violence, chaos, nationalism, pageantry, existentialism and self-reflection. The title may be a mouthful, but it creates an interesting opposite to Oppenheimer’s expertly edited works, and sets the tone for the show as a whole.

Installation View, Geoff Oppenheimer, "Inside us all there is a part that would like to burn down our own house," 2011. Courtesy of Ratio 3 gallery.

Depending on when you enter the gallery, your initial sensory experience will most likely be one of two things: visual or auditory. For some, a minimalist installation of sculptures and photographs will greet them. Others will not be able to ignore the deafening cacophony of marching-band instruments streaming from an invisible source. But we’ll get to that later.

Geof Oppenheimer, "Anthems," 2011. High definition video; TRT 0:04:40; Edition 1 of 3 with 2 APs. Image courtesy of Ratio 3.

The two bodies of work in the main gallery, Social Failure and Black Signs and Modern Ensembles, act as examples of how conceptual art can effectively function. The images in the series Social Failure and Black Signs are almost identical—black-and-white studio scenes of a hand holding a black sign with bold, white text. At face value, each piece holds an intriguing, reductive beauty. After learning the origins of each work, a satisfying sense of quiet epiphany develops. Each sign has a different fragmented statement that Oppenheimer chose from interviews with political figures such as Regan, McNamara and Castro, in which each man discusses the failures of his ideology. Devoid of any of the expected contextual information associated with protest signage, the images transition to an interior plane—a subconscious battlefield on which each person struggles with the contradictions of his actions and beliefs.

Geof Oppenheimer, "Modern Ensembles," 2010–2011. Gunpowder, blackpowder, smoke dyes, ballistic plex, and aluminum; 20 x 23.25 x 23.25 inches. Image courtesy of Ratio 3.

In dimensional and aesthetic contrast are the rectangular sculptures of Modern Ensembles. Oppenheimer made each piece by detonating various custom charges of explosive chemicals inside ballistic Plexiglas. The resulting cuboids are three-dimensional cross sections of a distinct explosion. By containing the blast, Oppenheimer makes us witnesses to a frozen moment of violence. Additionally, the time it takes to view the pieces’ six sides allows for the consideration of the relationship between space and time—an explosion takes place in an instant, yet with each ensemble, we are able to stop time and find the curious beauty in the chaos.

Geof Oppenheimer, "Social Failure and Black Signs," 2010. Pigment print 34 x 24.8 inches; Edition of 3. Image courtesy of Ratio 3.

After or during your time in the main gallery, you will undoubtedly start hearing the sounds of Oppenheimer’s video piece, Anthem. Tucked into the side gallery, the projection features a marching band playing four different national anthems. Instead of hearing them in succession, Oppenheimer layers each anthem so they play simultaneously. The resulting meta-anthem and/or non-anthem is an assault on the senses. In the video, figures fade in and out of opacity, overlapping into an accumulation of tan and brass. Each anthem, recited with pride, becomes a futile attempt at nationalism—not one can be distinguished from the others. The longer you watch, the louder it gets, as if each anthem is competing to be heard. The notes crescendo to an unintelligible roar, and then, as if overwhelmed with sound and light, break into white silence.

Geof Oppenheimer, "Modern Ensembles," 2010–2011. Gunpowder, blackpowder, smoke dyes, ballistic plex, and aluminum; 20 x 23.25 x 23.25 inches. Image courtesy of Ratio 3.

Oppenheimer’s work truly benefits from deeper consideration. While each piece stands on its own, the combination of the three series, plus the title, opens an investigation into a part of all of us that maybe we are not very proud of: the part that never lets us forget we did something wrong, the part that would like to burn down our own house.

Jimmy

Jaap Pieters, who is touring America for the first time with his silent 8mm films (he will be accompanied by electro-acoustic performances most nights), seems like one of the last types. He began to release his films in an art context during the mid 90′s. The first assortment of works filmed the street outside of his apartment in Amsterdam. He captured fleeting moments outside his window, asking questions about seeing and watching. He consciously captured homeless and drunks as they danced, bummed cigarettes, and staged mini-dramas for an invisible audience.

Kopjesdans (The Cupsdance), Jaap Pieters, 1992. Super 8, 2 Min 20 seconds.

These works challenge you to define them. They are slippery and dispute any single denotation that you provide. How they function is easier to explain than what they are. The assertive voyeurism that underpins these works creates an intimate dreamscape rather than an uncomfortable embarrassment. The images you see– a homeless person moving his or her (it’s hard to tell) collection of shopping carts filled with random detritus for example– are mini dramas, that begin and end as they move out of his window’s frame. Instead of feeling like you’re using them to entertain yourself, you feel like you’re finally actively paying attention to the people involved.

Blikjesman (The Tincanman), Jaap Pieters, 1991. Super 8, 3 min 20 seconds.

Pieters early films are almost all single shots, with no cuts or attempt at symbolic narrative, but there are some later works that have not only cuts, but were not framed by his apartment. 1994′s Raumschiff Schweiz (Spaceship Swiss) begins with what looks like a grey distant mountains surrounded by thick clouds. Slowly a tall cliff is revealed and the camera focuses on a series of waterfalls, trees, and turbulent water. The meaning and significance of any given shot is complicated by the cuts and constant shifting figurative ground that supports Pieters’s images. In the end, the most concrete, formal presentation of an object allows for the most abstract removal for the artist. His concrete surroundings are the least solid. The genuine is the least sturdy.

Spectacle, based in Boston, is a collaborative performance space for the under-programmed edges of music and visual arts.

Jaap Pieter’s travel schedule can be found here. Pieters is traveling and collaborating with musicians/sound artists Evan Lindorff-Ellery and Travis Bird.

The world doesn’t need any more films. The world doesn’t need any more video art. So if you’re going to bring an image into the world, you have to think it through. –Kodwo Eshun

After 50 years of production, distinct periods are appearing in the history of video art. Not distinct ism’s or manifesto driven bubbles, but separate works that seem palpably similar. As the technology used to make movies evolves past the time limits of tape, emerging digital technologies have given artists the ability to create works that seem unlimited in size, length, or production schedule. In 1993, Douglas Gordon laid down the gauntlet by slowing Hitchcock’s Psycho to 2 frames a minute, stretching it into a 24 hour composition. Since then, there have been numerous videos that have tested the stamina of the creators through decade long production schedules or the audience by being unwatchable in one sitting. Boston and Cambridge recently hosted three examples of these monumental works: The Cremaster Cycle, the Otolith Trilogy, and The Clock. Together, these movies point to a new, epic sized production practice and away from traditional art school skills (do any art schools teach bull riding?).

The Cremaster Cycle (Brattle Theatre, October 1-4) is a five movie series filmed between 1994 and 2003. It forms a self-referential system that both functions as a movie and an “Aesthetic System” for Barney’s prints, sculptures, and other ephemera. The entire program hangs on a series of analogies to bodily functions (the title is named after the muscle that raises and lowers the testes) that consider the creative act through a biological motif.

Still from Otolith III. HD Video. © The Otolith Collective. Image courtesy of MIT LIst Visual Art Center

The Otolith Group Trilogy (MIT List Art Center, September 6- 22) was filmed between 2003 and 2009. It is the shortest series considered here, all three movies total under 2 hours, but the production involved a multinational filming schedule, help from more than 8 art groups across multiple continents, and do not include the numerous spin off productions. The Otolith Trilogy is a collage of found film segments and original images. Named for a portion of the inner ear, the otolith structure help us keep our balance and handle the effects of gravity. All three movies are obliquely about the effects of time and how we keep our stability in a changing world. Otolith I (2003), assembled in response to the invasion of Iraq, documents a new species of humans who can only live in low gravity. Otolith II (2007) is primarily a visual comparison between Mumbai’s Dharavi and Le Corbusier’s planned city, Chandigarh. Otolith III (2009) is a prequel to the unrealized film The Alien from Indian director Satyajit Ray.

While The Clock (The MFA, Boston, September 16- December 31) is the most hyped, it’s also the least deliberated of today’s “it” art works.  It’s a 24 hour, continuous blanket of samples from movies and TV where the film mentions or shows a clock on screen indicating the time. These segments are cleverly mixed together to reflect the current time as you are watching.

Chrstian Marclay. Still from The Clock, 2010. Single-channel video, 24 hours. Photo: Todd White Photography.

Each of these video works have supplements that define their character. The Cremaster has numerous sculptures used in filming that have been exhibited with the movies. Seeing it in a movie theater, without the supporting material really drives home that even if you owned copies of the movies, somehow, that extra stuff does make the work feel more ambitious. The Otolith group’s sizable body of work overlaps and functions in a recursive way. Trying to outline the edges of their political activism and their art is a unproductive pursuit. Last, The Clock has made visiting the work an experience; waiting in the line to see it or trying to sketch a database of movies as time progresses. The viewer links the features of the work with the hour that they drop by. The size turns the work into something that you can’t completely experience in the aggregate but also doesn’t prevent the moment from having a distinct sense.

All of these movies were created by groups that have head artists, like a design firms. This doesn’t change how each movie should be received, but does point to collaborative practices as being a successful operational strategy today. Though they were all created in a collaborative environments, the aesthetic framework for each is wildly different.

Still from Otolith I. Video © The Otolith Collective. Image Courtesy of MIT List Visual Art Center.

The Cremaster Cycle is five distinct movies. There are connections between the films, but each stands alone and to decode them you need nothing more than a basic understanding of anatomy (and Masonic rituals for the third movie). Philosophically speaking, the movies are a closed system, that functions independently. Created by traditional filming, the movies have a beginning that flows to an end. Certain portions have stood the test of time, but formally, it feels dated. Their state of the art graphics are passé. The film quality is uneven, the third film (the last filmed) looks best. The myth is just as momentous, but I can’t imagine that this type of work would be possible in today’s economic environment. We should value it for that reason alone: the Cremaster is a time capsule from a time when a gallerist would fund a motivated, but relatively unproven young artist’s five movie cycle and make his career go from promising to prominent.

The Otolith Trilogy is not quite a closed system nor is it a completely unsettled and open ended. Made from a mix of new and historical photos and video, texts spoken over them, and an ambient soundtrack, the result resemble Chris Marker‘s works (Sans Soleil for example). In effect, the trilogy is a collage of real and imaginary events, where “the future feeds forward into the past” creating a confederated present.

The work is a lively montage, but a distinct post-colonial politics shaped these works, so it would be easy to disregard their proficiency as a pedantic heuristic. The non-political elements of each film amplify with repeated viewing, though. Each film is stratified with techniques and themes that are exacting for the viewer. Otolith I is a made up of real events transformed into a visual and textual poem. It asks, but does not answer, if it’s possible to find the courage needed in the face of change. Otolith II concerns itself with the effects of architecture on people. This “reconstruction of gravic space” changes resident’s attitudes and their aspirations. Otolith III questions the capacity to question via artworks. It examines the consequences of our creativity and who owns the lives that are created in narrative.

The Clock, feels larger than you on more than one level. You can’t see the whole thing very easily. Even if you live near one of the institutions that has purchased a copy (MFA Boston/National Gallery of Canada, MoMA, and LACMA), access to the whole 24 hours is hard to come by. It’s a wall of motion and activity from every part of the world and film history. It’s unwilling to reveal the why or what of its aspirations. Why this monster was created, if it a celebration of film’s moments or an allegory, isn’t answered and we are left to unravel what ties the individual moments together, other than obvious sonic and visual associations.

Chrstian Marclay. Still from The Clock, 2010. Single-channel video, 24 hours. Photo: Todd White Photography.

The Clock is a rich tapestry of subjectless players and sounds, with no objective goal. Christian Marclay‘s work depends on emotions and characters that made it through a double editing process, as each movie is edited before he can sample it. Marclay arranges film’s past into the present tense. Breaking the rules at times, implicit watches that don’t explicitly mention the time show that the feeling of these moments are more important than the exact time.

His creative mode is that of a dj rather than a singer/songwriter. Instead of crooning a tightly scheduled album about his/our love life, he selects segments of songs that work together, mixing them in the same witty way a dj cuts and remixes songs live. It’s is one of the best mixtapes I’ve ever looked at. It’s impressive for being able to deliver palpable atmosphere. You go to funerals at 10 AM and not at 10 PM. 6, 7, and 8 PM are different types of after-work experience (commuting, getting drinks, and movie/concert time, respectively). This may be the result of Hollywood’s reductive inclinations. Movies need to be believable and methodical for story telling. Movies distill each moment into consensus, presenting moments that pass our cynical minimum for believability. Despite that, a bad dj can ruin the mood. Marclay does not.

Accordingly, there are many approaches to exploring the past in this exhibition.  Some artists take history itself as a subject, while others focus on particular events from the world-shaking to the minutely individualistic.  The overarching theme is solidly postmodernist; a conspicuous refutation of the existence of any single version of events.  In fact, History in Art reinforces the preference for subjectivity by presenting work by artists working in all media and at different stages of their careers.  In this way, the exhibition examines history from almost all angles and media, and the diversity is rewarding.

Shinji Ogawa, Then and Now, Krakow, 2010, acrylic on book

Shinji Ogawa’s practice involves a series of techniques that investigate the image by drawing, overdrawing, halving, doubling, and layering.  Along one wall are three vitrines that encase picture or travel books from various cities.  One example, Then and Now, Krakow (2010) shows two views—one antiquated, one more modern—of the city’s main square with its famous Cloth Hall.  Ogawa has drawn the architectural elements that are cropped out of the originals across the gutter of the book.  His work links the two individual pictures, extending the scene and bringing the past in touch with the present.

Krystyna Piotrowska, I Left Poland Because…, 2010, video, 31 min

Loss haunts many of the works in the exhibition.  Krystyna Piotrowska‘s I Left Poland Because… (2010) is a two-channel video projected into the cleft of two angled walls.  Very simply, the two images show a close-up shot of a person uttering sentences beginning with “I left Poland because…” On the left, the person speaks in Polish; on the right, she speaks in English.  When one side is speaking, the other is frozen.  One quote: “I left Poland because it was the only country where I couldn’t be Polish.”  The components of this installation all contribute meaningfully to the whole: the angled walls create a setting where the speaker looks at the audience, but also nearly faces her estranged self.   Additionally, the switch between Polish and English very deftly facilitates an awareness of how language creates identity. The immobility of one side while the other talks points to the barriers of language and the slippage of translation.  In the gap between languages, how much is lost?

Robert Kuśmirowski, Processing, 2011, installation

Robert Kusmirowski’s Processing (2011) is a room-sized installation wherein classical sculptures are ground to dust.  One side begins with the figures in packing cases, then on leftward to threshing and winnowing machines, to a flourmill, a drill, and a sawmill cart.  This allegorical factory reduces even the most durable members of art’s legacy to mere grist for the mill.

Boaz Arad, Marcel, Marcel, 2000, video

Videos presented on flat-screen monitors are scattered throughout the exhibition.  It seems fitting that digital video, that most plastic of media, should be used to examine and recreate history.  Boaz Arad‘s work, for example, uses the flexibility of video combined with humor to address the legacy of Hitler and the Nazis.  100 Beats (1999) lampoons Hitler as a pervert masturbating onstage by looping a short clip of der Führer moving his hand in his pocket.  Shalom Jerusalem takes short clips from various archives of Hitler’s speeches to create a public address that never happened: Hitler saying, “Shalom Jerusalem, I apologize.”   In Marcel, Marcel (2000) Hitler’s mustache is playfully re-imagined.  This strategy of using absurdity to counter fear and brutality brings welcome levity to the exhibition as a whole.  Hitler’s reign may seem both geographically far and historically distant to an American audience, but the effects of World War II are still keenly felt in modern-day Poland.  By heightening the buffoonery of a murderous little dictator, Arad swabs old wounds with new laughter.

Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont 2009, Under Blue Skies, In Golden Sunlight, All Spectators Have Eyes Riveted on Gallant No.306, Giclée Print on aluminum 95 x 180 cm, courtesy of the artists and Goddard de Fiddes

Stadium, the ten-year retrospective of collaborative duo Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, looks back on a body of work that investigates connections between nationalism, aesthetics and performance. While Gill and Mata Dupont primarily focus on Australian nationalism, their work has its genesis in the global cultural shifts – in particular the increasingly ring-wing politics – that occurred in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Gill and Mata Dupont’s intensely ironic work has interrogated dominant icons of Australian identity, probing the characterization of Australian identity as masculine, native-born and white. In presenting serialized and ritualized celebrations of Australia’s ‘golden age’, the artists’ aesthetic of glamor and pageantry points to the constructed and mythologized nature of national identity. They reveal that official Australian identity has been formed by its exclusions, a point which they emphasize by drawing aesthetic parallels between Australia and the propaganda of totalitarian and fascist regimes.

Their Heart of Gold Projects (2004-2008) restage images and themes derived from 20th century propaganda, passed through a filter of Hollywood musicals, glamor photography, competitive calisthenics and kitsch Australiana. At its most fundamental level, this body of work asserts that aesthetics and ideology are inextricably entwined. The series also responds to the widespread marginalization of women in heroic histories of nation. The story of Australia that’s celebrated is conspicuously masculine, populated by heroic types conquering an inhospitable landscape. Gill and Mata Dupont’s work recasts women in the role of these heroes; however, the cross-dressing, pirouetting, high camp antics of their heroines are far removed from the realities of the frontier and the battleground, pointing to the dangers of citing the past to garner support for the politics of the present.

Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont 2011, Ever Higher, Performance, Photograph by James Hensby, Courtesy the artists and Goddard de Fiddes

Drawing on Mata Dupont’s family heritage, recent work has reflected on Argentina’s ‘dirty wars’ of the 1970s and 80s. Their 2010 video work Gymnasium took inspiration from the work of Leni Riefenstahl to depict an acerbic celebration of Australian sportsmanship and nation, while their new site-specific performance Ever Higher sees a lone aerialist commanding a troupe of cheerleaders with eerily familiar phrases such as “Teamwork will set you free,” and “Blood and Honor! We are gonna…win!”

Gill and Mata Dupont’s practice over the past ten years has satirized and disarmed nationalism, but there continues to be a degree of discomfort in their work. Their devoted irony is central to the ambivalence of the work, which, for some, reads as sincere. However, the artists’ resistance to offering a clear moral stance in their work is actually key to its success as parody—because, for all its deceptive innocence, the work is indeed seductive, like all successful propaganda.

Bischoff Soren Black installation image, 2011. Image courtesy of Johansson Projects

The current exhibit at Johansson Projects is how Oakland often seems; vibrant, mysterious and disorienting, with an underlying hum of recognition. The title of the show, BISCHOFF SOREN BLACK, when said aloud sounds like it could be part of a chant or spell, or the name of some mythical creature, when it is simply the last names of the three featured artists, Brice Bischoff, Tabitha Soren and Ellen Black. The works of all three artists combine to create a narrative of time, space, humanity and chaos.

Brice Bischoff, Bronson Cave VI, c-print, 2011

Upon first entering the gallery, you’re confronted with the contrast of Ellen Black’s stark, abstract geometric sculptures housing small video screens, and the dreamy cave interiors created by Brice Bischoff, that look like he was somehow able to get a whole rainbow to sit (relatively) still long enough to release the shutter of his camera. The caves filled with the unintelligible blurs use the magical capabilities of photography to illuminate and emphasize the mystical, contrasting qualities of caves and the light that fills them. The depth of each location anthropomorphizes the earth’s occupants before living creatures evolved – giving  life to the elements.

Tabitha Soren, Panic Beach 15759-3, pigment print, 2011

This quiet, pre-human interaction between earth, fire, water and air crashes into the violent un-worldliness of Tabitha Soren’s photographs. By inverting the images, Soren presents us with a tumultuous world that brings to mind the primordial soup from which we all came. With water crashing everywhere, it is sometimes hard to firmly orient oneself on the ground, causing the same kind of uneasiness one feels when stepping off a boat after being on the water for hours.

Tabitha Soren, Panic Beach 06734-20, pigment print, 2011

As soon as you feel like you’re finally getting a grasp of what is going on, Ellen Black’s video installations throw you back into the abstract. The white containers that hold her tiny video screens are more like quantum cubes than “boxes,” with edges and corners jutting out as if an unexpecting polygon was frozen while in transformation from one shape to another. The video pieces reflect their containers’ fluctuating desolation, with bleak beach scenes layered on top of other geographic scenes that break through the video’s digital deterioration, while miniature silhouetted figures wander with no apparent purpose across the landscape, some may be playing or drowning in the surf.

Ellen Black, Last Summer, single channel video, 2011

The experience of viewing the exhibition is one of quiet turmoil in contrast with the inherent beauty of the natural world. Like watching a video of a forest fire with the sound off, you know that something destructive is happening, but you know it will lead to regeneration. And of course there’s no denying how beautifully mesmerizing it is.

BISCHOFF SOREN BLACK will be on view at Johansson Projects until October 15, 2011.

Didier Faustino, (G)host in the (S)hell, 2008. Video Still. Image courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Michel Rein.

as Donna Haraway proclaimed in her 1991 manifesto. The fusion of man and machine in popular culture, scientific exploration and artistic production in the late 20th century, was loaded with fear, alongside great aspirations, of genetic engineering, technological advances and mechanisms of control. However, the anxiety of the future that was expressed in 1990s art with the exploration of digital interfaces and the disintegration of the body, seems now to have dissipated – our reality of this is far less distressing than what was envisioned 20 years ago.

Black Dog Press’s recent publication and accompanying exhibition at WORK Gallery, See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception, takes up the post-humanist trajectory of art once again, but reframes it within one aspect that has largely been brushed over – the senses – and asks you to consider how trans-human prosthetics alter individual perception and the experience of reality – or what it might feel like to be a cyborg?

In Didier Faustino’s (G)host in the (S)hell, perception and appearance are altered by a relatively benign substance that through excess becomes deformative. Faustino’s video records a performance in which the artist painstakingly chews bubbly pink gum that when adequately softened, is applied to his face. With time, the sickly sweet substance turns the artist into a monster, his breathing becomes increasingly laboured, and we can only cringe at the sticky reality underneath it all – the host must truly be in hell.

Beta Tank, Eye Candy, Yellow, 2008. Image courtesy of the Artist.

Extending sweets into cerebrally triggered sensation, Beta Tank’s Eye Candy project creates a proposal for an object that is stimulating to both the tastebuds and the mind. Eye Candy aims to ‘transmit vivid emotive images into your mind’s eye’ in six distinct flavours through an electrode-laden lollipop – a fictional creation based on very real existing technology. A true synaesthetic world where image and colour are on the tip of your tongue.

Ann Hamilton, Face to Face • 28. Image courtesy of Ann Hamilton Studio.

Ann Hamilton’s curious series of photographs, Face to Face, appear, at first glance, to present the world through the aperture of the eyelid as faces hazily emerge from a distinctive frame. However, Hamilton is working with the same portal as Eyecode – transforming her mouth into a tiny, functional camera. Her ‘mouth seeing’ extends the senses of the mouth beyond taste – here becoming the location of vision.

Golan Levin, Eyecode. Image courtesy of the Artist and Bitforms Gallery

And turning vision back at you, Golan Levin’s Eyecode, allows you to see yourself seeing, and others seeing you as well. Levin’s high-tech programme unwarningly records your eye movement as you stand in front of the screen, and plays it back to you alongside hundreds of others who have stood there before you. An uncanny, and quite intriguing, experience indeed, founded in mechanisms of surveillance.

What sets these works apart from the previous generation of artists is a sense of humour and intimacy – an engagement with the body that is less founded in fear, and rather in intrigue and the exploration of potentials. The question has been reframed to curiously ask, ‘What does this feel like?’ – and the possibilities of reality presented are quite enticing indeed.

Los Angeles artist Eric Yahnker opened the doors of his downtown studio to Beautiful/Decay and Visual Creatures to give our readers insight into his witty, iconic work that is layered with pop culture influences and the deconstruction of its icons. Eric discusses his career change from Journalism to art, his disdain for painting, and his love of Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Rodney Dangerfield.

Eric Yahnker Beautiful/Decay Studio Visit from Beautiful/Decay Magazine on Vimeo.

Paraiso at ltd los angeles. Installation view. Image courtesy of ltd los angeles.

Take Paraíso’s three opening works: Michael Linares’s Untitled, 2011, a big, blue balloon hovering above several beached strands of triangular, car-lot flags, weighted down by a rock; Linares’s Wait ‘til it grows, 2011, two small coconut trees sprouting straight from the coconuts themselves, burdened by a hammock strung between them that has yet to make it off the ground; and Charles Juhaz-Alvarado’s Del brazo a la garganta: (mimus polyglottos), 2011, a large, handcrafted wooden bulldozer claw that looks like it should be attached to an equally huge wooden bulldozer, but which is actually attached to a vehicle the size of a toy.  All three works exist in indeterminate states, with the onus on the viewer to decide whether the balloon is ascending or descending, or whether the hammock will make it off the ground.

Paraiso at ltd los angeles. Installation view. Image courtesy of ltd los angeles.

Michael Linares, Wait 'til it grows, 2011-ongoing. 4 feet x 8 feet. Image courtesy ltd los angeles.

This “half-empty or half-full” scenario continues throughout the show, including Jesús “Bubu” Negrón’s video La Promesa, 2003, in which the artist lovingly and exasperatedly drags an empty wheelchair from the airport in Mexico City to Ex-Teresa, an exhibition venue, stopping at multiple bars.  Two equally entertaining works by Negrón sit at the registrar’s desk: Mini Colillón Masculino, 2011, and Mini Colillón Femenino, 2011, a set of two giant and crumpled cigarette butts made of hundreds of smaller cigarettes.  Here your options include being disgusted by the sculptures’ material or wowed by their whimsy (including lipstick stains to indicate which Colillón is Femenino).

Jesús “Bubu” Negrón, La Promesa, 2003. Digital video with photonovela. Image courtesy ltd los angeles.

Jesús “Bubu” Negrón, Mini Colillón Masculino, 2011, and Mini Colillón Femenino, 2011. Cigarette butts, lipstick and glue. 8 in x 4 in x 4 in, approximately. Image courtesy ltd los angeles.

While Paraíso’s visual punning is reminiscent of the Puerto Rican artists Allora and Calzadilla’s entry at this year’s Venice Biennale, its message is more nuanced.  The press release for the show makes much of the idea that paradise relates to action, referencing scholar Alan Millard’s description of paradise as a work of cultural memory, as well as Cuban author José Lezama Lima’s book Paradiso, a sprawling tale in which little happens but just about everything is discussed.  Whimsy, beauty and tragedy are all there for the taking, but Paraíso reminds us that more often than not, they come as one package, and it’s up to us to decide how we’d like to unwrap it.

Paraíso is on view through August 13, 2011, at ltd los angeles in Los Angeles.

Left: Spin (C-818), 2008. Chromgenic paper, exposed/embossed/abraded. 10 13/16 x 8 1/2 inches. Center: Untitled (Study for Tremors), 2000. Silver gelatin paper, burned. 18 x 14 inches. Right: Untitled (E-30), 2005. Cyanotype on Fabriano paper, exposed. 13 1/16 x 9 3/4 inches. All images © Marco Breuer and courtesy of Von Lintel Gallery, New York.

As part of our ongoing partnership with Art Practical, Daily Serving is republishing Brian Andrews‘ article Marco Breuer: Line of Sight, featuring work on view now at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Installation of Marco Breuer: Line of Sight from FAMSF on Vimeo.

In 2005 when the de Young museum opened their new Herzog & de Meuron‑designed facility in Golden Gate Park, the museum endeavored to update their engagement with contemporary art practices. Most visibly, five large-scale works were commissioned from blue chip artists to be featured at the building’s opening celebration, including an immense print by Gerhard Richter, a meditation stupa by James Turrell, a glass installation by Kiki Smith, an outdoor sculpture and crack in the landscaping by Andy Goldsworthy, and a series of paintings by Ed Ruscha. Less sensational but potentially more impactful, the de Young also initiated their Collection Connections program with a series of work by local photographer Catherine Wagner. The program debuted with the objective of integrating contemporary practices with the de Young’s eclectic general collection holdings by asking artists to create a body of work both inspired by and displayed with objects from the de Young’s permanent collection. Marco Breuer: Line of Sight is the latest installment in this program.

Read the full article at Art Practical.