November 18, 2010 — January 29, 2011
Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy NY
JORDAN WOLFSON
Con Leche , 2009
Video project, Mac mini, video
Video 14:57 minutes; voice audio 22:41 minutes
Courtesy of the artist and Johann König, Berlin
A piece in which the video image and spoken audio are continuously out of sync, Con Leche presents an ever-shifting landscape of juxtaposition that defies a stable
symbolic reading. Animated Diet Coke bottles filled with milk march barefoot through the post-industrial streets of Detroit. The video image is constantly rotated,
undermining the sense of a stable ground. A commercial voice-over actress narrates fragments of text with unsettling topics, while Wolfson periodically interrupts and
instructs her to change the volume or tonality of her speech.
The film shifts around a central lack, understood by Lacan as the source of anxiety. This is reiterated in the figures of Diet Coke, a consumer product with no caloric
substance. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek has noted that products such as Diet Coke are the result of an age of "decaffeinated belief, a belief that does not hurt
anyone and never requires us to commit ourselves."
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
EXHIBITION Jordan Wolfson, Uncertain Spectator / Video still from Con Leche , 2009, courtesy of Johann König, Berlin.
Jordan Wolfson works in film, video, and installation. His works involve intuitive juxtapositions of source material, texts both found and written by the artist,
and potent, enigmatic imagery. His solo exhibitions include Johann König Gallery, Berlin, 2009 and 2007; T293, Naples, 2008 and 2005; the Wattis Institute,
San Francisco, 2009; and Kunsthalle Zürich, 2004. His work was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and many other group exhibitions in North America,
Europe, and Asia. He is represented by Johann König Gallery, Berlin; Rowley Kennerk Gallery, Chicago; and T293, Naples. He works in New York and Berlin.
Uncertain Spectator exhibition opening Photo: Travis Cano
TOUR
Thursday, November 18, 5:30 PM
OPENING
Thursday, November 18, 6:00 PM — 10:00 PM
Featuring the Troy Chainsaw Ensemble
The Troy Chainsaw Ensemble is a musical group committed to aural invention through two-cycle combustion. The group engages playfully with the visual stereotypes of the
chainsaw while employing the rich timbral qualities of the tool to create saturated washes of sound.
SCREENING
Dancer in the Dark
Thursday, November 18, 7:00 PM
An assault against escapism in film, Dancer in the Dark is an agonizing and unrelenting narrative of cruelty, hardship and human nature,
punctuated with sequences of song and dance.
Uncertain Spectator is FREE + Open to the public
HOURS:
Monday–Saturday
12–6 PM
Closed 11/24–28, 12/8–13, 12/23–01/02 + 01/17
INFORMATION:
518.276.3921
Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center
110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180
EMPAC 2010-2011 presentations, residencies and commissions are supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The National Dance Project of the
New England Foundation for the Arts (with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the
Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust), and the New York State Council for the Arts. Special thanks to
the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts for support of artist commissions.
Marie Sester's FEAR was made possible with support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.