Saturday August 1: Hauser & Wirth - David Claerbout

Art:
On a rainy Saturday afternoon, I followed the advice of Time Out Last Chance (http://www.timeout.com/london/art/event/144465/david-claerbout) and went to see David Claerbout at Hauser & Wirth*.

I am most impressed by the film screening in the room upstairs. To call it a film might not do it enough justice - it's more like a moving oil canvas in the still life caught by a camera with a pair of acute human eyes. Every shot looks like a well framed picture. This singer takes forever to get ready to sing and this one single moment is magnified from all possible angles of audience, close-up shots of audience echoing the texture of American Presidents portraits. Against the backdrop of classical music the film almost has a unavoidable opera fatal sense attached to it; while the concept of time is stretched to its extreme. I sat in the dark, only light coming from the high window covered by curtain and the oil canvas in front of me, but my mind, my ears, and my eyes are stretched to their widest capturing the finest moment of cinematograhy and oil painting.

David Claerbout is challenging our predefined sense of time and perception.

Hauser & Wirth, 196a Piccadilly, London

Commercial:
* Hauser & Wirth: Gallery founded by Swiss art dealer Wirth in 1992, whose London branch opened in 2003. http://www.hauserwirth.com/

1) Profit-making?

How does the business side of showcasing such video installation works work for a commercial gallery? I don't expect the gallery to make money from selling the entire installation to any individual. As enticing and thought-provoking as the art work is, I wonder how often do galleries really take up projects like this? What constitutes galleries' decision making matrix? A balance between pure art and commercial value?

2) Educating audience

There was no introduction when you step in the gallery. You are immersed in this immense space with two side-by-side screens and typical high ceilings. You grab a headphone and start watching. Then you make an entrance and see a small info desk where there are sheets about the art works and David Claerbout.
I find this approach very liberating. Audience are left to explore the first piece of art works without any presumptions but are not thrown in complete darkness before they go on with the two other pieces (there are three video installations in total).

China:
Can I see Chinese audience going to events like this? Maybe.

What needs to be different:
Educating audience - I would set up an area introducting video installation as an art form as a mixed media. Doesn't matter if it's at the beginning of the show or the end, but Chinese audience would appreciate learning about the context, esp for such an untraditional form of art (well, maybe British audience too - but I guess the challenge to understand might stop a selected group of Chinese audience from fully engaging themselves). Again, using "Chinese audience" is too general a term. But it will be another blog entry before I can discuss different tiers of Chinese audience.

Venue? Would Chinese galleries be willing to take up an exhibition like this purely for art's sake? I honestly don't know.