Locks Gallery is pleased to present 1967, a multi-channel video installation by Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, in collaboration with C. Spencer Yeh, on view January 13th through February 25th, 2012. C. Spencer Yeh and Aaron Moore, who performed the original score, will perform live in the installation on Saturday, January 28th, at 5 pm. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday, February 3rd, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
Hironaka and Suib’s latest cinematic venture, 1967, comments on the roles of the artist and the revolutionary in the political and social realms of their times. An immersive, multi-channel installation, the work blends documentary, fiction, and experimental filmmaking.
Although cut-up and looped, the moving images reveal a narrative thread that follows the Mao-adoring female protagonist of Godard’s 1967 film La Chinoise. She heads to Montreal with the intent to disrupt the 1967 World Exposition and winds up witnessing an experimental film that simultaneously depicts past, present and future revolutions. Veronique narrates this string of events, shifting between polemic and meditations on the nature of cinema and filmmaking.
The montage is comprised of original video, archival footage from Montreal’s 1967 World Exposition and Shanghai’s 2010 World Exposition, Godard’s La Chinoise, YouTube-sourced footage of protests past and present, and rare films from China’s Cultural Revolution. It is no accident that Hironaka and Suib quote La Chinoise. The artists refer to 1967 as an essay film, in the vein of Godard, but also Chris Marker. At the same time, their practice breaks up the usual cinema experience to take full advantage of the physicality of the gallery space.
Performance
On Saturday, January 28th at 5pm, a one-night performance will reunite the original live score performers, Brooklyn-based musicians C. Spencer Yeh and Aaron Moore, who will respond to the scattered moving images.
Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib have worked as artistic collaborators since 2008. Their installation Provisional Monument for the New Revolution, a panoramic moving image, was recently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.
Hironaka’s films and video installations have been exhibited internationally in PULSAR (Venezuela); Rencontres Internationals (Paris/Berlin); The Den Haag Film and Video Festival (The Netherlands); The Center for Contemporary Arts (Kitakyushu, Japan); The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Morris Gallery; The Black Maria Film Festival, The Donnell Library (NYC); The Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia); The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia); The Galleries at Moore College of Art (Philadelphia); and Vox Populi, (Philadelphia). Hironaka’s second solo museum exhibtion The Late Show was recently presented at Arizona State University Art Museum.
Suib has exhibited installations, video/sound works and photographs internationally at venues including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Kunstwerke Berlin; Mercer Union (Toronto); The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.); P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (NYC); The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia); and the 2007 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. His 2006 project Purified By Fire has been commissioned for exhibition in Miami, Chicago, Toronto and Paris. In 2011, Suib was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.
