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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Visual Art / Visual Art Draw the Difference Between Yesterday and Today

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:40 PM

At museums that are relatively off the grid, on-the-grid artists can be free. At Boise Art Museum right now is a new installation by Stranger Genius winners Lead Pencil Studio—whose latest Seattle installation Retail/Commercial, an homage to an empty retail space made with materials from January liquidation sales, opens tomorrow night.

At The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, Susie J. Lee, last known for the massive storm of light she brought down on Lawrimore Project in 2007, has a show of all new work up now. It's called Shadow Play, and it's devoted to the memory of being a young girl.

When you walk in, you motion-trigger a video of a shadow of a girl skipping away from you on the wall, taunting you to follow her. Another small, private room contains pencils and the voices of girls telling you to draw: A circle, a line, the difference between yesterday and today. The instructions start easy and get harder.

The largest space looks like a gallery before opening, with pedestals and materials scattered around and video-shadows of girls playing in the corners, almost as afterthoughts. The lights aren't trained on anything in particular, but they could be—this is still the potential stage, although it's the final installation.

Finally, in a single-channel video, the camera plays the game "Red Light, Green Light" with a young girl, getting closer and closer to her. She doesn't look uncomfortable in the least, but it's hard to watch.