I meant to post this last week but it got away from me. Re: Kevin’s work: Looking at his sums of Disney films reminded me of Jason Salavon’s work with old master portraits where for four artists he averages the bulk of their work and thereby “reveals the hidden norm lurking within” (Met Online). Also, and perhaps more tangential, Kevin’s 3D stacks had me thinking of films as sculptures that are carved further and further into as time and the story progresses. This reminded me of some of the work of Alberto Giacometti, who made these very existential sculptures that are very thin and appear to have been carved almost to nothing. I am told, and I don’t know if it is true or apocryphal, that these sculptures come out of Giacometti being so traumatized post-WWII that he would carve compulsively and often would do so until his work was completely turned to dust. Left only to his own devices, even the sculptures that survive would have been completely ground down. (A bunch of his stuff is up at MoMA. I’m thinking of Tall Figure III, Man Pointing, and Standing Woman.) Anyway, with this story and Kevin’s work in mind, it’s interesting to think of the movie viewer’s gaze as compulsively carving into the film. In that case, the progression of time in a film is a measure of the observer’s destruction, before which the unfolding of plot becomes almost incidental.
I like the Salavon; I had forgotten about him. I’ve also seen similar work (maybe his?) with something like Facebook photos or headshots. And Giacometti’s a really interesting example to consider in terms of sculpting away and the presence of time .
Beautiful post, Ashleigh.