April 19 - 27, 2025
The gallery space becomes an installation with live cameras, a green screen, and several video projections/screens. Walls are partially covered with archival images. The video projections connect two fragments: “Melancholia 2025”, and “In the Playhouse.” “In the Playhouse” is a video performance reenacting an interview that Marshall McLuhan gave Playboy Magazine in 1969 at his home in a Toronto suburb. The performers take on rotating roles of the interviewer Eric Norden, Marshall McLuhan, and his wife Christina McLuhan exploring notions of power, gender, genius, envy, and class of the 1969 constellation as much as of the 2023 group dynamics during the recording sessions. The video installation “Melancholia 2025” responds to Dürer's investigation of dimensional translation, particularly visible in "Melencolia I" (1514). In "Melencolia I," the central geometric object is a truncated rhomboid or polyhedron, one of the most enigmatic elements in the engraving. Fitting into the broader theme of melancholy and intellectual frustration that pervades the entire engraving, the polyhedron has been often understood as a symbol of the limits of human understanding. Embedded in "Melencolia 2025" I present video reenactments of Dürer's "Bildnis der Mutter" (1514) - the portrait of his mother, "Das große Rasenstück" (1503) - commonly known as "The Great Piece of Turf" or "Wiesenstück", and "Do wo der gelb fleck is und mit dem finger drawff dewt do is mir we” (There, where the yellow spot is located, and where I point my finger, there it hurts”)" (around 1521) - one of his self-portraits when ill. Throughout the installation, the use of minimalist text against a blank backdrop invites audience members to consider the myriad of associations and preconceptions that arise from the visualization of language.
Performers and Collaborators (in alphabetical order)
Rafe Didomenico
Matthew Savitsky
Kaitlyn Fiery
Billie Wynn
Cindy Fernanda Flores
(photo credit: Scott Alario)
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