Magic Moments:
The Screen and The Eye
June 21–August 20, 2012
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
280 The Fenway
Boston, MA
Hours: Wed–Mon, 11–5pm
Thu until 9pm; closed Tue
As the Gardner Museum celebrates the 20th anniversary of its Artist-in-Residence Program, the summer months will feature a selection of nine projections by artists in residence in the Special Exhibition Gallery. The works will be shown in a continuous loop during open hours, highlighting a different work each week and providing a unique opportunity to view these works.
June 21–25
David Wilson, Bol’shoe Sovietskoie Zatmenia (The Great Soviet Eclipse), 2009.
63 min
Set in the summer of 1936 during the most spectacular solar eclipse of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, the film focuses on the accomplishments and promising careers of the astronomers of the Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg and the path of their terrible undoing at the hands of Stalin’s NKVD.
June 27–July 2
Ackroyd & Harvey, Out of the Blue, 2012.
4 min
On April 15, 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted and for six days the skies above the UK were free of air traffic, providing a unique opportunity to experience life without the pollution air travel causes both acoustically and visually. Out of the Blue is a meditation on the power of silence when the sky is momentarily stilled.
July 5–9
Lida Abdul, In Transit, 2008.
4 min
A performance-based video staged in Afghanistan. It is a response to the spectacle of violence in war through the eyes of children.
July 11–16
Su-Mei Tse, Mistelpartition, 2006.
7 min
A slow travelling shot through a landscape of a row of trees, which appear like a musical score. The melancholy silence is broken by a mysterious music. The notes are visualized one by one through illuminations in the mistletoe branches—the distant reflection of a lost tune.
July 18–23
Henrik Håkansson, The 12th of Never (Extract from the Void), 2000.
20 min
Made in the jungles of Trinidad, this haunting and enigmatic work documents the artist’s attempt to communicate with insects.
July 25–30
Cliff Evans, Empyrean, 2007.
7 min
This film, which premiered at the Gardner Museum, creates a loose but provocative narrative around the subjects of power and population control, coded with interesting and often humorous subtexts. Empyrean’s themes were developed through an absurd juxtaposition of both benign traditions and disturbing pathologies: wellness tourism, missionary practice, militaristic domination.
August 1–6
Dayanita Singh, File Room Slideshow, 2011.
A digital slide projection of 41 black and white photographs from the File Room series shown as part of Illuminations at the Venice Biennale in 2011, and depicting paper archives from across India.
August 8–13
Luisa Rabbia, Travels with Isabella, 2008.
27 min
A video composite of archival photographs collected by Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1883 in China merged with Rabbia’s drawings and digital art. A fantastical construct, an enigmatic landscape created by cutting out, reframing, and combining images and drawings, weaving two very personal journeys into one. Also this week: Travels with Isabella microsite—launched in April 2012—will be incorporated into kiosks in the gallery and in the Living Room.
August 15–20
Melvin Moti, No Show, 2004.
24 min
Making reference to a historical event that took place at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg during World War II, the film revolves around an exhibition, which only appears to the eye through a conscious act of imagination. Also this week: launch of a special edition magazine by Moti.
Organized by Pieranna Cavalchini, Curator of Contemporary Art, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Media contact: Michael Busack, T 1 617 278 5107 / mbusack [at] isgm.org
Opening year exhibitions are made possible in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Media Sponsor: Boston Globe Media, Inc.
*Image above:
Lida Abdul, In Transit, 2008. Image courtesy of the artist and Giorgio Persano, Kabul, Afghanistan.
