Jeremy Blake is no writer. After beginning to read his artist statement, I abandoned half way through, as nothing that I had gleaned was more interesting or informative than watching his new work which is on show down at the Honor Fraser Gallery in Venice. If familiar with Blake’s previous works, his signature techniques are still employed: still images becoming motion, dissolves that are transitions and subtlety provide focus of attention and meaning. However, unlike the previous work of Blake’s that I have seen, which are always on the edge of a nostalgia for a future yet to come, his new video Sodium Fox, feels like it occupies a time somewhere between years ago and now. The imagery evokes a 60's-70’s nostalgia: beaches, matchbooks, and half nude women with lazy flowing hair. However the visual motion is all today, knowingly living in the world of motion graphics sophistication. The audio chronicles the rambling of a poet, but quite unfortunately in the gallery, the audio is almost indiscernible because of the conflict with traffic noise and highly inadequate speakers. With this said, there is a captivating quality to the way he moves and manipulates attention around the frame, a fluidness not seen often in video art work. His video seems to appropriately occupy the “framed” flat panel that it displayed on, still feeling more akin to the history of painting than moving images, and something that you might need time to develop a relationship with over repeated viewings.
Unfortunately the stills that fill the rest of the show seem like extras, a way to fill the gallery walls of this very small gallery. The reduction of his work to the 2d realm, a realm without time, just reemphasizes their static quality, removes their context of before and after. This before and after is really where Jeremy Blake’s meaning seems to lie, not in any one image, but the transition between images, providing a journey that we take from a point close to nowhere to somewhere just past it.
No comments:
Post a Comment