Ellen Gallery in darkness for show on time in art

 

Timelength opened this week at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery.

As its name suggests, the show, curated by gallery director Michèle Thériault, looks at “the material experience of time that resides within each piece,” and focuses on how video and film projected in a labyrinth of darkness affect the viewer.

It is one of several recent art shows that put the moving and projected image at its heart by turning the exhibition space into a black box.
Thériault said, “I don’t think this is an easy exhibition for the viewer. It requires you to spend a lot of time with the work.”

The video and film works are by young artists from Canada (Pascal Grandmaison, Gwen MacGregor and Jocelyn Robert) and abroad (Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij). Also included are works by Michael Snow and Andy Warhol, who started transforming the notion of duration in the cinematic image back in the 1960s.

Dutch artist Willem de Rooij spoke in the Bourget Building on Nov. 11 about works he has produced with Jeroen de Rijke.

They have been working together for almost a decade, creating 35 mm films that are shown as minimal installations and are screened at precise intervals to encourage the viewer to look closely at images that they might otherwise absorb in a glance.

On Dec. 12, a catalogue for Timelength will be launched at a screening of Andy Warhol’s Empire, an eight-hour film of the Empire State Building. The film will be screened at the Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent Blvd., accompanied by local musicians, and the public is invited to drop by “for a drink, a chat, to listen and watch.”

Walk-in tours of the Gallery begin today, Nov. 18, and group tours are available on request. Please phone 848-2424, ext. 4778, or ppalucci@alcor.concordia.ca. The schedule of film screenings is available at www.ellengallery.concordia.ca This show runs at the Gallery until Dec. 22.