A trailblazing video installation for Carter
The Amon Carter Museum, long at the forefront of seeing familiar vistas through new eyes and extraordinary angles, will forge ahead in this mission in Novem-ber with the first video-art installation in its history.
Just one decisive work of artistry is all it takes. Mary Lucier, the artist thus represented, will visit the Carter on opening day, Nov. 15, to discuss the evolution of her work. The exhibition itself, Mary Lucier: The Plains of Sweet Regret, is an 18-minute, five-channel video – occupying an entire gallery.
Video as art – what a concept. “Painting with light,” the early-day cinematographers termed the phenomenon, and of course the very term photography conveys literally the same meaning. Video, descended from moving-picture film which itself descends from the ray-of-light inscriptions of photography, has accounted for numerous museum installations during the past generation, notably at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and in collaborations between the Dallas Museum of Art and the Dallas Video Festival. The Carter has chosen precisely the right piece to distinguish its entry into this fascinating arena of a provocative medium as it evolves.
The CarterÂ’s American-art imperative is advanced strikingly in The Plains of Sweet Regret, which depicts the Great Plains of North Dakota with haunting beauty. An accompanying musical score, composed by Earl Howard, matches and amplifies the pictorial intensity; the effect overall is rather like that of peering into somebody elseÂ’s dream-consciousness to the extent that the dream becomes oneÂ’s own.
The Plains of Sweet Regret will remain on view through Feb. 15.
“This work presents an extraordinary opportunity to experience the richness of video art by an artist at the top of her form,” says Jessica May, the Carter Museum’s assistant curator of photography, anticipating a particular popular resonance in citified North Texas.
“Many of us were born in the country and have moved into the city,” May explains. “Many of us have family in small towns. The Plains of Sweet Regret will remind us all of the wonderful, fragile way of life rural communities foster.”
Lucier, Ohio-born in 1944 and a New Yorker since 1974, is a pioneering figure in video art. Her works are among the first such pieces acquired by the visionary likes of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lucier was invited to create Sweet Regret by the North Dakota Museum of Art as part of a series of commissions called The Emptying-Out of the Plains, addressing the dire reality of rural depopulation in the Upper Midwest. Caught up in circumstances comparable with those of the Plains region of West-by-Northwest Texas, many areas in the Upper Midwestern Plains have suffered drastic losses of population during the past 50 years as newer generations have abandoned farming in favor of city-dweller life.
LucierÂ’s visit will center upon a lecture at 11 a.m. Nov. 15. The artist will discuss the span from her earliest experiments in video during the 1970s to the present day and The Plains of Sweet Regret. The exhibitionÂ’s catalogue will debut in a book-signing session following LucierÂ’s presentation. The admission-free lecture does require reservations, which can be made with a call to 817-989-5057.
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