(Mis)Reading the Image: Selections by Darrin Martin
eai.org
This online selection of videos by Darrin Martin stems from the artist’s research seeking disability representation in EAI’s collection—both intentional and unintentional. The titles span early conceptual video to contemporary performance, engaging themes of perceptual difference, semiotic play, and embodiment, and present an array of strategies for access. In Shape of a Right Statement, Wu Tsang re-performs text by the late disability rights activist Mel Baggs. Phyllis Baldino’s Absence is Present: MayJuneJuly and Absence is Present: Dead Nature in the Dark overlay handheld footage with a fuzzy, floating orb meant to represent a blindspot experienced by the artist following open heart surgery. Lawrence Andrews’ Birthday and Anal Denial explore the titular prompts through simultaneous on-screen text and spoken monologue. In John Baldessari’s The Meaning of Various News Photos to Ed Henderson, the artist dissects the semiotics of news media while prompting his interlocutor to verbally describe isolated newspaper clippings. Cecilia Vicuña’s Fire Over Water hauntingly addresses industrial climate disaster through a poetic rendering of the artist’s experience watching Gasland 2. Finally, Shana Moulton’s Whispering Pines 6 problematizes the incomplete promise of wellness culture to make its subjects feel whole. The videos are closed captioned. Baldessari and Moulton’s works are presented with open captions in a window-boxed format to minimize interference with the image. Baldino’s works are included with and without audio descriptions, which were written by EAI staff in collaboration with the artist. Available through April 28.
Watch here.
