In his fourth exhibition with the gallery, the American artist is presenting six works “in conversation.”
Entering the gallery the visitor is quickly confronted with the SELF ( ) series--five white acrylic sculptures ranging from a simple square to more enigmatic geometric forms--all with an eye/lens at the center.
In the adjacent elongated space is Ghost Chance, which gives the exhibition its title, a six-channel audio/video installation. All moving images are fixed frames of portions of vinyl records focusing on minute fluctuations of light across the grooves. As a whole, they conjure up the blackness of space, heavenly bodies, and relentless circular motion. The sound is only that of dust and scratches randomly making rhythmic patterns or not as the case may be.
Occupying a pair of similarly vaulted spaces are two works realized with the actress Isabelle Huppert: Is a Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky and Loop Through. In the former, Huppert becomes a portrait in motion, fluctuating between “herself” and “acting,” where a rush of subtle changes of behavior and emotions are revealed: discomfort, intensity, boredom, playfulness, annoyance, agitation, coyness, etc. and yet, nothing happens to save for a moment, an airplane is heard flying overhead. In the latter the person/actress is always looking at one of two cameras, creating a triadic relationship between the viewer, Huppert, and, in a sense, her double.
To follow Place Holder, a single-channel HD video with multichannel audio, sees the artist himself, repeatedly flipping a coin until he drops it and drops out of the frame at which point the sound of the coin hitting the ground takes center stage. The action, as if to question chance or hope of a different outcome, also touches on questions of artificial intelligence at the same time resonating with the double-doubled Isabelle Huppert.
The exhibition ends with Locked Grooves, (a technical term referring to the inner groove on a vinyl record in the form of a closed-loop, which traps the tone arm and needle, preventing it from entering the label area), a ten-channel video installation utilizing intimately sized flat panel displays of headshots of people wearing headphones. We do not know what they are listening to, but we imagine, perhaps we begin listening as we watch the subtle changes in their behavior and emotions.
In some sense, all these works and particularly how they are installed here and now have something to do with neighboring nothingness.
