7/8/2011

Harbor Islands Pavilion Video Programming in the Boston Globe

In today’s Boston Globe, Cate McQuaid writes about public art in Boston (full article here), and she mentions the Nature Special temporary exhibition, curated by the DeCordova, at the Harbor Islands Pavilion on the Greenway:

The Boston Harbor Islands Alliance and the architecture firm Utile, which designed the Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion on the Greenway, invited the museum to present a video program on the pavilion’s two 8-by-10-foot LED screens. . . . “Nature Special’’ engages viewers on several levels. Because the videos–by Jim Campbell, Suara Welitoff, Sam Easterson, and William Lamson–are on pixellated LED screens, they’re easy to read from a distance, and images grow more abstract as you get closer. They activate the space around them.

Campbell’s low-resolution “Grand Central Station’’ features shadowy pedestrians, echoing those crossing the Greenway. Welitoff’s gorgeously slowed-down “Kiss’’ spotlights two hovering hummingbirds, their wings rotating in a flurry of abstract gestures. Easterson’s “Burrowing Owl’’ makes direct eye contact with the viewer, veritably inviting us into its lair [above right]. Lamson’s “Emerge’’ is lighthearted, with colorful balls popping to the surface of water and drifting into the air–on the LED screen, it’s marvelously abstract.