Gary HIll, one of the video works focused on language and words and books at Slought.

Panel discussion at Slought. L-R in front, Charles Stein, Gary Hill, George Quasha. Rear, Aaron Levy, Osvaldo Romberg

The Seattle-based Hill (b. 1951) is an established big gun in video art, whose work is widely shown around the world.  He’s a 1998 MacArthur genius award recipient and his works — while conceptual — deal with language and the body in a mostly non-narrative but people-focused way.  

Gary Hill, video piece in which he pushes his body against a glass wall. The audio hums at an alarming decibel level.

The work that greets you in the darkened front gallery is a multi-channel video projection whose audio is a bone-rattling hum so loud and unnerving I ran out of the gallery several times for relief ( I was not alone).  This piece — whose images were close-up shots of the artist’s body parts straining against a glass wall — lives where language doesn’t often go, the fear/anxiety zone experienced in the body.  The work communicated nicely, without words.

The show — with works from the ’80s through the present — is beautifully installed, making use of the two vault spaces to show projected videos that would either upstage others in the exhibit or that need quiet space to digest.  Pacemaker alert:  Wall Piece (2000), which involves a strobe light that flashes to coincide with a video of the artist as he jumps against a wall and says a word, is another piece with a visceral impact on your body.  While the work has pizzazz and is quite likeable, its connection to language seems almost extraneous and what it most reminded me of is a child’s jump rope song where the words are tacked on to the act of jumping rope but seemingly have no meaning.  The impact of the piece does not lie in the words but in its visual spectacle.  See video here.

Gary Hill and Charles Stein at dinner doing some language games.

Remarks on Color (1994), which is not in the show, depicts the artist’s young daughter as she struggles to read from Wittgenstein, a text she clearly does not understand.  Many of the pieces at Slought — like Remarks on Color — deal with word comprehension, obfuscation and communication.  They all imply discomfort inflicted on the body by language.  (If you’ve ever been yelled at you will immediately “get” the connection between body and language.)

 The artist, who seems a charming sort, showed himself to be a beatnik-rapper guy when, at dinner after the opening, he broke into a sing-song nonsense verse accompanied by everyone’s hands clapping.  It was endearing if not comprehensible–and very in keeping with what was in the gallery a block away.  See video here.

TUESDAY MARCH 17

Gary Hill, Wall Piece, (2000); Single-channel video/sound installation. Video projector, strobe light and strobe controller with steel floor mount, two speakers, one DVD player and one DVD (color; stereo sound). All images courtesy of the artist and Donald Young Gallery, Chicago.

Gary Hill–NOTE:  AS OF 2 PM MONDAY, MAR. 16, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
Hill has been working with video and sound since 1973. His intermedia use of text, speech and image explore the physicality of language and our thought processes. Winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius award in 1998, and winner of the Leone díOro Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1995, his work has been included in six Whitney Biennials and Documenta IX.

Coinciding with the talk, a show of Hill’s work opens at Slought on Saturday, March 21. 6:30-8:30 pm, with a conversation between Hioll, George Quasha and Charles Stein at 7 pm. The show runs to May 1.

Gary Hill
UPenn Graduate Fine Arts Lecture
Cosponsored by Slought Foundation
5 pm, Meyerson Hall, B1
210 S. 34th St. Philadelphia PA 19104
Open to the public

WEDNESDAY, MAR 18

Barkley Hendricks

Barkley Hendricks
The talk, by this major African American painter who put his own stamp on Pop Art, is the precursor to Hendricks widely acclaimed upcoming exhibit at PAFA (now at the Studio Museum in Harlem). The PAFA show opens Oct. 17, 2009 and runs to Jan. 3, 2010.

Barkley Hendricks
5:00 PM
Upper Meyerson Gallery
Meyerson Hall
210 S. 34th St.
Open to the Public

Lawrence Weschler
Weschler is a former New Yorker writer and culture critic. He’ll be talking about the shift from books to blogs and instances of the world melting into thin air, i.e., the transitory quality of the internet and what it means for the culture.

Lawrence Weschler
All that is Solid
2008-2009 Penn Humanities Forum on Change
5:00 pm
Rainey Auditorium, Penn Museum
To register (required): go here
Event free and open to the public.

Drew Leshko, 2009, Untitled Installation (detail), paper, wire, plaster, basswood, plastic, acrylic, enamel, 40" x 80" x 40"

Seriously, Stupididity
And here’s a new show at a new outpost in North Philly. When you’ve had enough of the words and lectures, you can come up for air and look at some art. Damian Weinkrantz and Adam Wallacavage, both from Space 1026, are in charge here in a new space called Shadow’s Space Gallery above Kung Fu Necktie, a watering hole with one of the best signs on north Front Street.

showing work by
Drew Leshko, David Dunn, Danny Perez, Spencer Wunder, Mary Deevy, Manuel Dominguez Jr., Jessica Roberts, Gloria Joan Haag, Laura Lee and Susan Houwen, Brieann Robyn Tracey, Carrie Collins, Jason Goldberg, Isaac Lin, Kelly Turso, Adam Crawford, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Ken Sigafoos, Ben Woodward, Judith Schaechter, Amber Lynn Thompson, Crystal Stokowski, Matt Leines, Jim Houser, Jayson Musson, Andrew Clark, Plankton Art Co., Erich Weiss, Dan Tag, Dave Fox, Carolynne McNeel, Nick Paparone, Shelly Spector, Charles Burns, Aryon Hoselton, Paul E.

Seriously, Stupididity
Shadow’s Space Gallery
upstairs at Kung Fu Necktie
Opening Reception
Wednesday March 18, 2009
6:00-10:00
1248 N. Front Street
Philadelphia

THURSDAY, MAR 19

The new Temple Gallery at Tyler School of Art. Image from Temple Gallery.

New Temple Gallery Grand Opening
NEW Temple Gallery at Tyler School of Art on the main campus has its official opening Thurs. Mar. 19, 6-8 PM. It’s the kickoff for the series of student MFA shows as well. Those shows run Mar 18-May 9, with each student getting a 4-day slot in that window. First up and on view for the grand opening are Bassem Mostafa, Charlotte Rodenberg, Fabian Lopez, Tom Gallagher

Temple Gallery
Grand opening reception 6-8 PM
NEW ADDRESS: 2001 North 13th Street, Philadelphia 19122
215.777.9139

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, MARCH  20 AND 21

George Tooker, Lunch, 1964

George Tooker Symposium
A scholarly array of scholars from around the country and across the pond discuss the art of George Tooker, whose 40-year retrospective is on display at PAFA now through April 5.

George Tooker Symposium
Friday, 9.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m.
Saturday, 9.00 a.m. – 3.00 p.m.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Broad and Cherry Streets
$50 members, $60 non-members, $30 students with ID. For tickets, please contact 215-972-0522 or rsvp@pafa.org.

Also on Saturday night, the reception for Gary Hill at Slought–see top entry.