Cliff Evans
EMPYREAN
(Nov 9, 2007 – Jan 13, 08)
at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
I’ve been trying to find more video screenings, with out attending mini film festivals. I think I have some good leads, this came up and I saw it. This temporary video-art by Cliff Evans, might be the ONLY contemporary piece of art in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum– which is more known for its fantastic internal courtyard (now decked out in red poinsettias), leather bound books, doilies, old correspondence, and cool old furniture. The video piece was constructed of five screen projectors mounted the ceiling and projecting upon five widescreens (mounted lengthwise), three screens in the middle and two as the outer wings.
It started off with soothing electronic music playing and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie riding a camel into the desert and drawing the attention of locals, and paparazzi. As they brought their “celebrity” to the wasteland, many commercial trucks followed them, FedEx, etc, then the military drove in and many men parachuted into the desert. The place was then over-run by tourists, hospitality services, security contractors, military and commercial operations. Spas, tanks, religious preachers, pious people and thrill seekers. And then there was a weird/cool image of a multi-headed flying Cheetah with bird wings and human breasts, roaring and swooping down from the sky. Basically humanity is presented as lost among its animal pursuits. Does this human-system have a stopping point? How long can it sustain its own raging celebrity-party and self-satisfaction? The projection canvas is large but the video is short enough you can watch a few times to see all of the items.
All of the images that Cliff Evans used are found-photos cropped. segmented and animated in a MTV/documentary style. They soothing pan and zoom to tell the story of empire drunk on itself.
The rest of the Gardner Museum is much as it has been for the last several hundred-thousand-millenniums…. “Boston-beautiful” and quirky.
You can get an idea of Cliff Evans’s spacey detached multi-panel videos on YouTube:
15 Reasons to Go to War (part 1)
15 Reasons to Go to War (part 2)
Boston Bazaar Bizarre 2007!
Boston Bazaar Bizarre
I like going to this every year. It only lasts 6 hours, and I blew more money on funny craft-bling than I was expecting. But I do have to shop for the relatives in Alaska. I also bought a perfect bold graphic tote-bag and a handmade black and white comic for today’s secret Santa. The little ‘zine reminded me of my homer junior high school days, when my posse and I drew hilariously dumb black-and-white comic books….
