Opening on Saturday, February 20th, the gallery will present the work of Los Angeles-based artist, Rachel Khedoori. This will be the artist's first one-person exhibition in New York.
For this exhibition Rachel Khedoori has produced three large works, each work occupying one of the three gallery spaces. Each work's main visual element is a projection: 35 mm, 16 mm and video projection respectively.
The work occupying the first gallery, Untitled (Blue Room), 1999, is a 80% scale model of an actual room in the artist's house, which was used as a set for the film. The room was altered through the addition of carpet, reconstructed wallpaper, lights, and filmgels. A 35 mm projector and looping mechanism is built into the room replica and projects the footage onto the wall in the gallery. The viewer can see the film from three distinctly different spaces. This rejects the traditional theater situation and therefore addresses the space outside the frame and incorporates the viewer into a physical and an illusory space.
The work placed in the second gallery, entitled "102nd Street", is a projection of 16 mm film footage of a street, shot at different times with different lenses over a period of two years. The film is projected onto a box that can be viewed like a television monitor. The projector is modified to take 5000 ft. reels, creating an exaggerated apparatus in which the slow movement of the giant reels underlines the repetitive quality of the imagery.
For the third work in this exhibition, Untitled (Jaws), 1999, the artist presents a white box/room measuring 4 x 6 x 6 ft. which can be entered from two sides. The room has two parallel benches facing each other and two rear projection screens are placed behind each bench. Video projectors are positioned on the outside and project onto the surfaces of the room. The room becomes sandwiched between images creating an illusory space, a screen which one can enter.
All three works are hybrids in which architectural, sculptural and moving image components are balanced to create the overall experience. The films lack human subjects, but the sculptures invite the viewer to enter in order to complete the works. Furthermore, the editing of all three projections varies between real time and slow motion, giving the viewer the opportunity to inhabit the psychological space that these works offer. The repetitious quality of the 35 mm and 16 mm film loops amplifies the notion of a memory revisited, the attempt to recreate a moment past. The continuous viewing of the looped films induces a sense of claustrophobia. It is as if the mind tries again and again to access a memory that is hidden and suppressed, and cannot be communicated.