Krzysztof Wodiczko at Galerie Lelong

by Will Brand on February 14, 2011 · 1 comment Reviews

Krzysztof Wodiczko
Date: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH 2011 – SATURDAY, MARCH 19TH 2011
Venue: Galerie Lelong528 West 26th Street
AFC’s Rating: 3/10 (Will Brand)

The main piece in Wodiczko’s current show at Lelong, …OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, isn’t anything new for the artist. The 8-minute projection implies the gallery as the inside of a nondescript building in Iraq or Afghanistan while a firefight occurs outside, combining the artist’s interest in veterans – as demonstrated in his memorial projections – with his interest in works that open the gallery to the outside world – as demonstrated in his Venice installation in 2009. Unlike Wodiczko’s earlier work, though, it’s entirely devoid of any political power; a statement is made about the difficulty of understanding veterans’ experiences, but there’s no hope that this can be remedied, and no reflection on that lack of hope. This powerlessness towers over the potentially interesting turn to narrative in projection art – a field usually more concerned with spatial politics. The other video in the exhibition, Flame, is essentially a Winamp visualization of a recording of a US strike in Afghanistan, and is exactly as bad as it sounds.

{ 1 comment }

Markcreegan February 22, 2011 at 5:08 pm

I completely disagree. I thought this was politically powerful because it wasnt overly didactic. The viewers in the space became implicated as what? perhaps insurgents hiding from the american soldiers? I think the flame was elegant but would have been better as a projection onto the wall rather than on a screen.

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