On Friday, I went to the Dia Chelsea art gallery to see the new exhibition of Lucy Raven. Raven was born in Arizona. She demonstrates, in her work, the tough cut between nature and human industry. The exhibit includes two rooms. The first room consists of 4 spotlights that move slowly in a pattern, creating different circles by hitting close or distant points on the floor or walls. If there are people in the room, their shadows become part of the art. I hung there for a while and continued to the second room.

The large barn-like room with a huge, curved screen broadcasting a 45-minute black and white film called Ready Mix. I sat down on the white bleachers in front of the screen that showed the last shot: a tractor placing a block in a wall made with enormous blocks. All other people in the room left, and I had the privilege to watch the peace by myself. The first shot duration was extremely long. A one-shot showing a close-up of the rolling part of a concrete truck, the audience cannot identify the moving object until the next shot, where it arrives at its destination. I sat patiently, trying to understand the connection between every shot and the ending shot I saw when I got there. The reason for every frame was not very clear at first. The meaning of the frames is only understandable when viewing the entire piece.

The opening introduces us to the concern of the movie.  The film shows the industrial process of producing concrete. Through top long shots filmed with drowns and surprising close-ups of machines’ insides, we observe the workings of an Idaho concrete plant from an experimental point of view. Raven captures the desert of Idaho in a realistic, non-conservative way. For example, a shot presents the high hills of the desert with a tilt down to an earth-moving tractor that loads sand and rocks in its spoon. This shot reflects the essence of construction. Man takes over nature and uses it to its needs. We do not see a peaceful dessert. We see a tractor working like a tired ant, which moves sand in a massive pile of sand.

The film is constructed mainly with one-shots of a repetitive motion. One of them, for example, is the earth-moving tractor taking in a long top shot, loading a big pail of (what looks like) dirt, driving for a while, and unloading it on another pile of soil in a different shade.  Although we see it do the action only one time, In the frame, we see countless trails in the sand, suggesting it is doing the same thing for a very long time. Another example of repetition is in a long one-shot of small stones on a conveyor with water, a move that makes them round and shiny. Watching the recurrence of the same movement for so long (a few minutes every time) creates the feeling of Semantic satiation. It’s the same weird feeling one gets when they repeat the same word over and over, and it starts to sound weird. The shot temporarily loses its simple meaning and you start to doubt what is projected on the screen.

By Noga Harel

When visiting the fourth floor of the MoMA, one may turn right from the elevators to the Andy Warhol exhibition. I recommend doing the opposite and stat with turning left. With going against the flow, I discovered the revolutionary exhibition – Shugako Kubota: Liquid Reality. An exhibition of short videos projected uniquely and creatively for the exact purpose of challenging the viewers to see beyond what is illustrated in front of them. Kubota is a Japanese artist (1937-2015) who is affected by new technology and examined its relationship to time, the body, and everyday life. Using standard definition video and super 8mm footage, Kubota edits and manipulates the video’s electronic signal to create a new and experimental form of video.



In addition to new forms of layering video and editing, Kubota is also examining new forms of screenings. As part of the exhibition, there are two types of screenings. The first part includes clips in wooden boxes. Three wooden boxes are in a pyramidic kind of structure and are covered with mirrors from the inside. The video is played on a small screen on the bottom of the pyramid, that way it is also mirrored on the walls at all different angles. The fourth wooden screening box is in the shape of 4 steps staircase, with a screen on each step. All the screens are showing the same clip in sync. The clip is constructed from footage of a naked woman who walks down the stairs. In addition, Kubota has layered its effects and distractions. This sculpture of the video was inspired by the Cubism painting Nude Descending a staircase (No. 2). The way Kubota used a cubic staircase to screen a nude in a deconstructive way had preserved the cubism ideology while creating a new form of art.

The second part of the Shugako Kubota exhibition has demonstrated the origins of its name: “Liquid Reality”. In another room, there were different kinds of clips, most in a blue to green color palette. The clips are screened either over metal or through water and again create an alienated feeling that makes the spectator think carefully about the viewing. The first piece is a projector screening a clip over a boat-looking metal vessel filled with water. The container included a small swirling tube that created small waives consistently and made the viewing more challenging. In the second piece, the footage is screened on a spherical monitor that swings over a metal curved plate. This sculpture and screening capture both Kubota’s clip and the actual viewer’s reflection. By the third piece, I was most intrigued. It was a wall of mirrors and screens with a water dripping frame, creating the illusion of rain or a waterfall. On the wall, a projector projected one clip, while on the other screens in the wall are projected videos of water-related views. All videos in this piece are in a blue and green color palette, but one video in the lower middle part of the wall, that had a reddish color palette. That clip was a loop of what looked like a trees-top with sunset (or sunrise) in the background.

To sum up, everything that was stated and illustrated in this article, Shugako Kubota: Liquid Reality exhibition, is a brilliant and unique display of old and new footage of the world shown from a new perspective. I recommend taking a look at this showing even if one has already visited the MoMA.

An Article by Noga Harel