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Gillian Wearing's Drunk
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Film
Scopophilia, a five-month festival of video art, is a straightforward Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) exhibit. No photography. No objects. No installations of any kind. Scopophilia is specifically about the video in a darkened room, projected onto three makeshift screens painted on the gallery wall.
In comparison to the gallery-busting installations that typify CAC exhibitions, Scopophilia is minimal at best, with none of the amusement park trappings we've come to expect from other video installation art exhibitions. Scopophilia is about a bare room, some chairs and the flickering images of the video art itself.
Still, plenty of political, social and esthetic themes are here to be explored.
Gillian Wearing's Drunk begins the five-month festival in impressive fashion. Scopophilia is a rare opportunity to see a ¡wide range of video art in a stark and immersive setting. It's important to remember that video art is something that needs to be seen west of the Hudson River. Most Cincinnatians didn't have the opportunity to visit the Whitney 2000 Biennial. For them, Scopophilia should be the destination of many repeat visits.
Veteran video artists like Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Bruce Naumann or Barbara Kruger are not part of Scopophilia. The series is about video artists on the periphery: Janet Biggs (Flight), Jeremy Blake (Bungalow 8) and Sam Taylor-Wood (Travesty of a Mockery). I've watched most of the films on video. Still, out of fairness to the work, I'll only discuss the film that's currently installed.
There is an artistic voice to be found in Drunk, which is not something I'm willing to say about most commercial films. There is no specific beginning. No musical score. No climactic finish. There are no flashbacks, creative edits or opportunities for false pretense. Drunk lets its story unfold just the way we see it.
Still, there is a more general question to be asked: What is projected by Wearing's 23-minute film?
Watching Wearing's shuffling drunks, I felt anxiety, dread and regret. I also felt the childlike playfulness that exists at the core of intoxication. The playfulness of Wearing's subjects offsets the cynicism that lies at the core of her film. Imagine setting a camera in a studio and filming a room of drunks. Wearing is a British artist, but Drunk addresses themes that are global in nature. When you think about it, Drunk could have been filmed in a vacant Over-the-Rhine storefront.
It's difficult to connect Wearing with early video artists such as Peter Campus and Nam June Paik. Wearing's Drunk celebrates a realist cinema, not all that different from Lars von Trier and his Dogme 95 filmmakers. Drunk is emotional, but it's not all that visually complex. The endless repetition takes away any conventional use of time. Free of the eye-opening effects frequently found in independent film, Drunk is decidedly anti-avant-garde. Still, at a time when just about anybody can pick up a digital video camera, Drunk reminds us that not every "home video" is a work of art.
Like any art exhibit, Drunk exists as a physical object. It's also a moving image. Drunk compels the eyes like most movies. We watch it in much the same way we would watch any film. But in the context of the CAC gallery, I found myself walking up to the wall and touching the image. It's not something I do in cinemas. But here it seemed like an appropriate thing to do.
There is no catalogue for Scopophilia. Viewers won't find any perceptive essays to help guide them. The festival's title was taken from Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema." While Mulvey's essay primarily discussed Hollywood cinema, it's fair to see how the perceptual pleasures of cinema can be applied to video art.
People interested in true art films have few, local opportunities to experience new work. The Video 2000 exhibit at the Wright State University Galleries includes installations by Nam June Paik and Cincinnati artist Benjamin Britton's re-creation of a American TV living room. The Sundance Channel honors the American underground with a month-long retrospective of avant-garde films. It's also important to note that New York's Whitney Museum honors Dayton-based video artist Jud Yalkut with a retrospective through Dec. 3.
If there is to be a video revival here in Cincinnati, Scopophilia is poised to be the catalyst. As a critic, I know how important it is to experience films away from the commercial arena. Scopophilia continues with five video programs through March 25, 2001. Through it all, there is an opportunity to remove the invisibility that surrounds local video art and the artists that create the work. The possibilities for outreach are endless. Traditional art critics can grow more comfortable with video. Art dealers and galleries can showcase the work more frequently.
More importantly, Scopophila, with its five-month run, has the ability to reach a sizable audience. Maybe, these underground films won't have to dwell in obscurity much longer. Along the way, the CAC also pushes its own boundaries concerning the art and artists it chooses to exhibit. I think Scopophilia has the opportunity to help the CAC establish a new identity. It might even encourage the CAC to exhibit more video art.
The sole irony behind Scopophilia is that one of the progenitors of video art, Nam Jun Paik, has a significant installation, "Metrobot," standing outside the CAC's Fifth Street entrance. There was a time when Metrobot pulsed, flashed, splashed, hummed and rocked. Now, as the Scopophilia festival gets underway, "Metrobot" remains in dire need of a repair.
Drunk is not an interactive video installation. Actually, I take that statement back. Drunk is emotionally interactive. Video art like Drunk emotionally impacts me in ways that commercial film fails to do. I'm reminded that videos need not always tell their stories in a conventional manner. Its significance is that Drunk tells its story in a new way. Drunk exemplifies what video art does so well: It connects with its audiences. The joy of the CAC's Scopophilia festival is that it's making this opportunity available to Cincinnati audiences.
SCOPOPHILIA, the Contemporary Arts Center's video installation festival, presents Gillian Wearing's Drunk through Dec. 3. Subsequent videos will be presented through March 25, 2001.
