David Gryn, director of Artprojx, selected five videos from tonight’s opening of Art Video at Art Basel Miami Beach. Below, he tells us what he selected, the personal impact of the work, and why it’s never easy to choose favorites:
Being asked to select five out of the 60 or more films and videos that we selected for Art Video, the Art Basel Miami Beach project where we screen on the vast wall of the New World Center at SoundScape Park, and in 5 pods inside the fair, is a tall order as there are so many of the works that I could choose. My selections were shaped by the notion of “poetics,” which gave me a focus and a rhythm on my decision-making. I also created titles for each screening program that reflected my choices such as “Love, Time & Decorum.”
It is the sound and music of the art works that formed and led my thought processes and these five works I have selected all had a very powerful audio resonance with me.
A selection of five works in no particular order:
1. Sirens of Chrome – Jesper Just
There is sound, music, and poetics in Jesper’s work that touches me within moments of seeing any of his works and lingers in my mind long after any screening or viewing. “Sirens of Chrome” felt perfect for the situation of where it will be screened on the huge 7,000 sq ft wall of the New World Center – with the Miami traffic running alongside and an audience comprised of a wide slice of the Miami community. I am also interviewing Jesper in the fair’s Art Salon program, in a talk I entitled “The Poetics of Enchantment,” based on the effect his work has on me.
2. Repeat after reading – Mauricio Lupini
In my selecting, these Lupini films became the introductory sound of these programs, a kind of art fair soundtrack, as they spell out in flashes of black and white text and play bursts of Latin American music, which is so much part of the multi-cultural human landscape in Miami. They instantly make a laid-back happy mood, as well as a call to audience observation and participation.
3. Anti-Mercator – William Kentridge
William Kentridge is a modern alchemist, creating magical and mesmerising works from seemingly base materials that engage audiences on so many levels. I can always view his work over and over again; he is a brilliant and true artist. He also collaborates perfectly with the composer Philip Miller, whose music infuses the works with an added dynamism and sublime.
4. Blessed Blessed Oblivion – Jumana Manna
Jumana was a real discovery for me in this project. Her work immediately touched and engaged me on so many levels, its use of language and poetry, from the delightfully crude to the profound, the technical quality of the filming and subject focus. The Arab music is a joy and there is much humor. However, the message is a striking and very human observation of a deep-rooted misogyny.
5. Counting In – Tim Davis
This film and other works by Tim, create in me the tense anticipation of what is about to happen that never does. Here we have band after band about to start a piece of music and it never start, yet that is the real joy we have in much that we do, see, and experience – that of anticipation, regardless of it being fulfilled or not. The program he is in ultimately has much fulfillment in other glorious artists’ works that feature the music of Sigur Ros and Antony and the Johnsons.
David Gryn is the founder and Director of Artprojx, which screens, curates and promotes artists’ moving image projects usually in the context of the cinema, working with leading international contemporary art galleries, art fairs, institutes, and artists. Artprojx also creates fundraising, development, audience, marketing strategies, projects and special events for arts organisations, artists and charities. More
