Study for a Scene

These are installation views from Study for a Scene, a January-February 2024 solo exhibition at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Adam Liam Rose. The show includes a new moving image installation filmed with cast and flame worked glass, stop motion, and mime.

Text:

Many thought that it was a simple scene. That the blame was clearly on the glass, the window that played tricks on the bird, the glass who pretended to be the sky.

But the window had, for a moment, been the bird, when the bird in the sky became the bird in the glass.

The window felt shattered. A glass feather floated down and away and up and over the city. I'm the victim, said the window. 

And the people watched. They were in the theater. The glass was a scrim. 
And the glass was caught in a loop, the bird’s doppelgänger cemented there. 
A loop from mirror to water to mirror again. 
A loop because the glass was always moving. 
A loop because the glass was Janus.

The show includes four pieces:


The central moving image work: “The window felt shattered,” 2024, two-channel video (rear and front projection, color/sound), mirror floor, windowed partition (with Bill Bowers as the mime, violin & viola by Pauline Kim Harris, and sound design by Kevin Ramsay), 11:49 min, looped.

A credits video to the left of the main projection: "Beckett's Chew (Where Credit is Due)," 2024, cast glass, single-channel rear projection (BW/silent), custom mount, 59 sec, looped.

A spotlit glass sculpture to the right of the main projection: “Curtain Call,” 2024, Kiln-formed glass, single-channel spotlight video projection, pulley, custom mount, dimensions variable.

A small-scale moving image piece opposite the main projection: "the glass was catching its breath," 2024, single-channel rear projection (color/sound), foam core, vellum, flexible mirror, 1:30 min, looped.

© Sara Stern