Strange Days: Memories of the Future PART I
Homage to immersive video art
INTRO
The best hiding place is in plain sight. And that’s the case of Store X. Of course I knew about the exhibition Strange Days, and of course it was in my to-visit list — yes, I too suffer from obsessive compulsory disorder, lost in lists and organizers (you are not alone). But little did I see when I was walking past the Somerset House and little did I expect when I literally bumped into the exhibition. From the outside, black panels and fabric were covering the whole building block, serving as the perfect disguise; a black box landed in the heart of London, so big in size and so minimal. Was this the intention of the curator? Possibly. My first thought nevertheless was, this is a construction site. The huge neon orange letters on the front were too big to be read by a passenger in such close proximity; but they did make me stop to look and, on second sight, realize where I actually stand.
This element of surprise and randomness, coupled with the dramatic tone of the size and selection of colours, served for me as the smoothest insertion to the mode of the exhibition that I could possibly experience. Diligently sloppy as it may be, Strange Days: Memories of the Future is an exhibition that calls you to discover, and urges you to immerge.
ACT
The interior of the building was in harmony with the exterior. Brutal, half demolished, the space seemed in truth under construction or refurbishment. Absence of finishes, exposed concrete, lack of walls, dim lighting. Large-scale, multi-screen video installations were framing each space; red lights were guiding you through, from each space to another; scarce seats here and there were complementing the dramatic setting. It reminded me of the official music video “Valtari” from Sigur Ros Valtari Film Experience. Two contemporary artists / dancers are encountered, get to know each other and fall in love through dancing in an abandoned building, where music with classical and minimal aesthetic elements, intensifies the emotional response to an almost erotic narration of an intimate relationship, integrated into the spacial movements. This feeling of exploration and openness was captivated within the walls of this gallery, through the abundancy of means in use, couple with the minimalistic approach in the space decoration and the dramatic connection between the old (space) and the new (media).
The exhibition featured an anthology of video artists that have exhibited in the New Museum of New York; Massimiliano Gioni curated of Strange Days, and he is also the artistic director of the New museum. The distribution of the video works within the gallery was creating a narration in space that was emphasized by the use of colours. One room was total black, another white, another blue. The exhibition was calling visitors to interact; to access one room, you had to take off your shoes, in another to lie on beds. One space was theatrically configured like a movie scene; another seemed more like a home cinema.
One of the most extraordinary works of the exhibition, Kahlil Joseph’s Fly Paper, 2017.
This stand-alone, impressionistic 20-minute film collage is quite intimate and biographic, depicting his family, the jazz, the black culture, Harlem. Intense and memorable images, this is a film of fragments; the drummer with his bass drum on top of stairs, the singer Lauryn Hill performing in a jam session, a man in white lying in a bathtub. Continuous moves through corridors, out at the street, inside a house full of presences. Fly Paper is lyrical and melancholic through its roughness; visually astonishing, dancing between reality and surreal; between present and past; I lose myself due to both sound and music, and its enclosing space creates the proper background.
In the next space, Oliver Laric Animation (Untitled, 2018) is travelling me back to school years. Constant metamorphoses, animals turn into humans, transformed into maze and superheroes mixed up with monsters; figures similar to manga cartoons, Picasso’s paintings rolling into Disneyworld. Uncountable references are passing in front of your eyes in a glimpse of a second, like living in a dream.
The deeper I was diving into the exhibition, through labyrinthian corridors and galleries, more the stories would I discover, more the scenes would multiply.
[continues to PART II]
Reference
- The Vinyl Factory, official website:
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/strange-days-memories-of-the-future-the-store-x/
- Reviews from magazines:
https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/strange-days-review-store-x-a3956006.html
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/kahlil-joseph-fly-paper-the-store-x-berlin/
- Wikipedia: Kahlil Joseph, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Joseph_(filmmaker)
