IN WHICH APPEAR
Curated by Fern Silva, Ian Curry and Jesse Malmed
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 - 7 pm
Gallery 400, Chicago
Gary Beydler — Hand Held Day
Framed by bleeding, blurring edges, the program begins with a film that Fred Camper noted works "to make one aware of the unreality, the created and mechanical nature, of film." And yet, all the while, as the frame is bent, broken, and buoyed between reality and unreality, a spinning, centrifugal momentum carries us. The movies inside the movie but also the movie on top of the movie and also a very literal garden inside the machine. A program in which appear Thai gardens, amusement parks, Kenneth Anger's (best) soundtrack, (being) at the drive-in, the exhausted performer pushing the envelope we call screen, a Russian doll of representation, and—at last—a handheld mirror giving us the east and west at once.
In Which Appear screens within Karen Reimer's mammoth installation at Gallery 400, responding to the ways in which she (almost) fills space and the role of external mathematical structures. The history of experimental media art is littered with conceptually- and structurally-concerned works. This program references this history while paying particular focus to under-seen works that infuse these structures with levity, improvisation, and a distinct humanness.
Featuring:
Owen Land - Remedial Reading Comprehension, 1970, 16mm film, 5:00 min.
Laura Kraning - Vineland, 2009, video, 10:00 min.
Jeremy Bailey - bye bye bye, 2002, video, 5:17 min.
Jessie Stead - Poor Man's Puce Moment, 2008, video, 3:48 min.
Takashi Ito - Spacy, 1981, 16mm film, 9:00 min.
Gary Beydler - Hand Held Day, 1975, 16mm film, 6:00 min.
Tomonari Nishikawa - Lumphini 2552, 2009, 35mm film transferred to video, 3:00 min.
Henry Hills - Failed States, 2008, video, 10:00 min.
