Video Reviews & Interviews
Brooklyn-based Danish artist Joachim Koester channels the wild west in a distinctly avant-garde way in his absorbing video installation, The Place of Dead Roads, in which dancers dressed as grubby gunslingers move around an eerie boarded-up space as if locked in a tense shootout, all without weapons or an obvious enemy. (At Chelsea’s GreenNaftali through Feb 14th).
Joachim Koester, The Place of Dead Roads, HD video installation, color, sound, 33:30 min, 2013.
A never-ending scroll of words runs on all four walls of Metro Pictures‘ upstairs gallery, naming National Security Agency and Government Communications Headquarters surveillance program code names, gathered and presented by New York artist Trevor Paglen. Minimal and in black and white, the piece resembles a memorial, perhaps to freedom from observation. (In Chelsea through Dec 20th).
Trevor Paglen, installation view of ‘Code Names of the Surveillance State,’ November, 2014 at Metro Pictures.
In a futuristic city inhabited by robots, stories of two dogs and a married couple loosely intertwine as one character tries to disentangle real from false memories. As could be expected, the protagonist never separates one from the other, but the process of watching is mesmerizing. (At Eleven Rivington’s 195 Chrystie Street location through October 5th).
Adam Shecter, installation view of ‘New Year’ at Eleven Rivington Gallery, September 2014.
Beautiful organic forms, a trace of violence in a smear of blood, a mysteriously hazy landscape and a young woman crowned with a wig of wool and hidden by a totemic mask by Zipora Fried create an atmosphere of enticing mystery at her impressive solo show at On Stellar Rays on the Lower East Side (through October 12th).
Zipora Fried, Installation view of ‘I Hope the Moon Explodes,’ at On Stellar Rays, September, 2014.
Bouchra Khalili’s video installation in the New Museum’s Arab art exhibition movingly documents the travels and travails of immigrants coming to Europe without papers. The tales of their setbacks and successes are mesmerizing. (Through Sept 28th).
Bouchra Khalili, The Mapping Journey Project, eight videos, color, sound, 2008-11.
