The video window is a program of our Downtown Art Gallery at 416 Market Street, Lewisburg. During the day, we present an exhibition in the gallery and after dark we present video art in the storefront window of the gallery; bringing art downtown round the clock.
Staging Silence, a 22 minute video by Dutch Hans Op De Beeck, is our Fall presentation in the video window. The artist describes his video….
“The recent black-and-white video Staging Silence (2009) evolved around remembered places. Not existing places but instead abstracted archetypical backdrops; the kind that stick in the min’d eye as the greatest common denominator of scores of comparable public locations. A great variety of venues are materialized before the eye of the viewer. Hands appear and disappear in the image like anonymous puppet masters. Banal objects and handmade representations are manipulated at scale and in artificial light until they have created alienating but recognisable places. The different scenes in Stagins Silence can be called either ridiculous or serious, as can the eclectic collection of images we all carry around with us in our memories. But you could say the prevailing mod is earnestness and a sense of brewing threats. The title refers to the staging of such slumbering decors, in which no human is present but the viewer can project oneself as the only protagonist.”