Artworks aim to make blood pressure rise at ‘Endurance’ exhibit
Staff at the Abington Art Center was busy setting up the current exhibit for the morning of Oct. 9. It took some swapping of power and A/V cords, and the plugging in of several TVs, projectors and DVD players. This is the first video exhibition for the art center, according to assistant director Heather Rutledge, and it’s bound to make you feel something — and that something is probably “edgy.”
That edgy feeling starts as soon as you walk into the gallery. In a mostly dark room, you’re greeted by a bank of 13- and 17-inch, low-definition, CRT TVs sitting on a table, each playing a video of varying length. There are also two projectors set up in the room — all to showcase “Endurance: Daring Feats of Risk, Survival and Perseverance,” which is running at the art center through Nov. 29. The installations are on loan from several galleries in New York City.
The theme plays off of the trend of performance art, and even events like ESPN’s X Games, and shows like “Jackass.” Except at the end of the X Games, somebody wins something, and at the end of “Jackass,” somebody gets hit pummeled.
There’s resolution, and it’s almost like a sigh of relief. That sigh never happens while watching many of the pieces in “Endurance.”
“In our show, there are a lot of people doing repetitively stressful things, and going out every day to survive,” Rutledge said. “They force a lot of emotion, and some of them stress you out — the stress builds up. “
One of the small TVs shows “The MBC @ The Office,” by the duo ManosBuckius, which comprises Melanie Manos and Sarah Buckius. A work from 2007, it shows two people in a square office zooming around, sorting and stacking mounds of white paper.
The video is sped up to the point where it’s almost cartoon-like. It seems like it could be real though, except a clock in the middle of the room tells you it’s not — and it’s on a loop, so the stack builds and falls down quickly. Equally stressful is “Where She is At,” by Johanna Billing. Shown on a projector, it depicts a woman on a high dive near Oslo, Norway agonizing over whether to jump. She clings to the edge, looks casually over the railing and wanders around.
Visitors want that sigh.
“People will yell, ‘Just jump already!’ to the screen,” Rutledge said.
While watching a video of a woman on a high dive, viewers know how they’ll get their resolution. At the end, there should be some sort of splash. With “Eels” by Patty Chang, viewers don’t know how the video clip will end. It depicts Chang, sitting on a bench, wearing a white shirt that appears to be a little wet, with a white background. Chang just sits there squirming; making awkward faces. She’s got eels in her shirt. You can’t see them, but they’re there.
“A deep sigh is almost the reaction for a lot of these videos when it comes to a resolution,” Rutledge said, adding that she doesn’t know if the Norwegian woman ever jumps, but, “A friend of mine was at the opening with me, and she and I stood there [watching “Eels”] for probably over 20 minutes. Then the curator came over and said, ‘It’s only a 4-mintute video.’”
More geared toward survival, is Emily Jacir’s “Crossing Surda,” which depicts the artists trip to work while crossing the Israeli-Palestinian border. Armed with a hidden camera in her bag, she picks up video imagery of other commuters, the marketplace, and people armed with M-16 rifles. And as for the risk, there’s a video shown on a projector by Janet Biggs called “Vanishing Point,” which shows footage of motorcyclist Leslie Porter setting world records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Though Biggs doesn’t get up to 234 mph like the motorcyclist, she’s still going about 100 mph in a custom-built chair.
As for the sigh with these two, Jacir probably made it to work, though it’s hard to tell because the journey is 2-hours long, and the bench facing the projector screen didn’t look very comfortable. And the motorcycle record – there’s no resolution there either, as clips from the salt flats are intertwined with, you guessed it, clips from the Harlem Addicts Rehabilitation Center’s Gospel Choir.
The Abington Art Center is located at 515 Meetinghouse Road, Jenkintown. For more information, call 215-887-4882; or visit www.abingtonartcenter.org.
That edgy feeling starts as soon as you walk into the gallery. In a mostly dark room, you’re greeted by a bank of 13- and 17-inch, low-definition, CRT TVs sitting on a table, each playing a video of varying length. There are also two projectors set up in the room — all to showcase “Endurance: Daring Feats of Risk, Survival and Perseverance,” which is running at the art center through Nov. 29. The installations are on loan from several galleries in New York City.
The theme plays off of the trend of performance art, and even events like ESPN’s X Games, and shows like “Jackass.” Except at the end of the X Games, somebody wins something, and at the end of “Jackass,” somebody gets hit pummeled.
There’s resolution, and it’s almost like a sigh of relief. That sigh never happens while watching many of the pieces in “Endurance.”
“In our show, there are a lot of people doing repetitively stressful things, and going out every day to survive,” Rutledge said. “They force a lot of emotion, and some of them stress you out — the stress builds up. “
One of the small TVs shows “The MBC @ The Office,” by the duo ManosBuckius, which comprises Melanie Manos and Sarah Buckius. A work from 2007, it shows two people in a square office zooming around, sorting and stacking mounds of white paper.
The video is sped up to the point where it’s almost cartoon-like. It seems like it could be real though, except a clock in the middle of the room tells you it’s not — and it’s on a loop, so the stack builds and falls down quickly. Equally stressful is “Where She is At,” by Johanna Billing. Shown on a projector, it depicts a woman on a high dive near Oslo, Norway agonizing over whether to jump. She clings to the edge, looks casually over the railing and wanders around.
Visitors want that sigh.
“People will yell, ‘Just jump already!’ to the screen,” Rutledge said.
While watching a video of a woman on a high dive, viewers know how they’ll get their resolution. At the end, there should be some sort of splash. With “Eels” by Patty Chang, viewers don’t know how the video clip will end. It depicts Chang, sitting on a bench, wearing a white shirt that appears to be a little wet, with a white background. Chang just sits there squirming; making awkward faces. She’s got eels in her shirt. You can’t see them, but they’re there.
“A deep sigh is almost the reaction for a lot of these videos when it comes to a resolution,” Rutledge said, adding that she doesn’t know if the Norwegian woman ever jumps, but, “A friend of mine was at the opening with me, and she and I stood there [watching “Eels”] for probably over 20 minutes. Then the curator came over and said, ‘It’s only a 4-mintute video.’”
More geared toward survival, is Emily Jacir’s “Crossing Surda,” which depicts the artists trip to work while crossing the Israeli-Palestinian border. Armed with a hidden camera in her bag, she picks up video imagery of other commuters, the marketplace, and people armed with M-16 rifles. And as for the risk, there’s a video shown on a projector by Janet Biggs called “Vanishing Point,” which shows footage of motorcyclist Leslie Porter setting world records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Though Biggs doesn’t get up to 234 mph like the motorcyclist, she’s still going about 100 mph in a custom-built chair.
As for the sigh with these two, Jacir probably made it to work, though it’s hard to tell because the journey is 2-hours long, and the bench facing the projector screen didn’t look very comfortable. And the motorcycle record – there’s no resolution there either, as clips from the salt flats are intertwined with, you guessed it, clips from the Harlem Addicts Rehabilitation Center’s Gospel Choir.
The Abington Art Center is located at 515 Meetinghouse Road, Jenkintown. For more information, call 215-887-4882; or visit www.abingtonartcenter.org.
