See Yourself
Beaten eyeglasses sit in a plastic display case, the left eye frame stretched and distorted. Siebren Versteeg’s “Lenscrafter” serves as a unifying symbol for Grand Arts’ Haunted States, informing us that the show is about observing reality with a skewed point of view.
Four of the show’s five artists — six, if Chicago’s CarianaCarianne counts as two artists housed in one body — are from New York, and all but two use video or sound in this largely talkative display.
The second work to greet us is Versteeg’s “Neither There Nor There.” The technologically complex and playful piece shows two images of the artist, each sitting on opposite sides of a dividing line created by two 15-inch LCD screens hung next to each other. Virtual dots comprising the artist fly back and forth; as the artist is physically formed on one side, the other side depletes. Versteeg is stuck in a self-created virtual reality, trapped in a constant flux between being and diminishment.
Nearby plays Mathilde ter Heijne’s four-and-a-half-minute film, also starring her own double. “Mathilde, Mathilde” involves a life-sized silicon dummy of the artist, a physical manifestation of a psychological struggle. In the film, she wrestles with the dummy on a rainy day; both figures are clad in raincoats. Mathilde agonizes over keeping her doppelgänger or letting her go. At last, she drops the dummy, and it falls, realistically but in slow motion, into water. The question “Without love, what would life be?” appears on the screen. It’s a sad take on letting go.
In the nearly 11-minute video “Bequeaths,” the artist(s) CarianaCarianne speaks directly into the camera, bequeathing items to each other and to others. The individuals are speaking at the same time, forming a disjointed stereo effect; it’s unclear who is who. Attentive listening reveals that Carianne is on the left, dressed all in black, her tone serious. On the right, Cariana wears a short-sleeved white shirt and blue sweater and speaks of death in an almost amazed tone. She gives away childhood items: a yellow Schwinn bike, a rock collection, a green lunchbox. Her wide-eyed innocence is endearing, but she’s also aware that she and Carianne could perish together. We’re told the video is a copy of an original that’s stored in a safe- deposit box, to be played at CarianaCarianne’s death. If ever there was art made simply for the artist, this is it.
The same goes for CarianaCarianne’s similar short film “Oath of Signature.” For three and a half minutes, the two women face each other, left arms raised, pledging a personal oath. It’s a serious promise, CarianaCarianne says, “a sign for all eternity to confront the problems of mankind.” CarianaCarianne’s conviction toward the question of identity is admirable and her editing is seamless, but what’s in it for us? It’s as though we’re watching two strangers get married.
If CarianaCarianne’s work is a bit too self-conscious, Laurel Nakadate’s video “Stars Are Blind” is sublime in its subtlety. Playing in a makeshift theater behind dark curtains in the back of the gallery, the approximately five-minute film includes footage taken during the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. It’s anything but sentimental or exploitive. In the foreground, the artist dons a Girl Scout sash and looks on in contemplative poses. In the background, others gawk at the mysterious horror that’s unfolding before them. A bouncy pop song plays on the soundtrack, in sharp contrast to the events in the distance. A growing cloud of smoke forms across the clear blue sky as Nakadate salutes the camera in an adamant stance of bravery, staring straight into the eyes of the unknown — our own.
