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Sep 17 / Gabby

"Life Stories" at Gallery TPW

Last week I went to the opening of Gallery TPW‘s newest exhibition, “Life Stories,” curated by Chen Tamir. Focusing on “confessional video portraits documenting the stories of unusual individuals,” the show is very video heavy (which is fine with me, but be forewarned, a little time-consuming) but the narratives – both the stories and the way they are related – are engaging and affective.

My favourite piece, and the one I spent the most time with, was Meiro Koizumi‘s Human Opera XXX (2007).

Meiro Koizumi, Human Opera XXX, 2007, 17 min , Single Channel Video
Courtesy: Nicole Klagsburn Gallery, New York

Set in a kind of artist’s studio/low budget science fiction set, the video documents a series of ongoing exchanges between the artist and his subject: a dignified but very sad man (who, Tamir’s curatorial essay tells us, responded to an ad Koizumi placed in the newspaper asking for people who could discuss their personal tragedies for a fee) who is attempting to relate a story of alcoholism, family disputes and recovery. His tale is constantly interrupted by Koizumi, or Kozuimi’s filmmaker persona, who makes requests that the narrator change different elements of his costuming and the props around him in order to add “drama” to the tale.

Although Koizumi’s requests are absurd, the man complies with all of them until he is covered in permanent marker graffiti, clumps of crumpled aluminum foil and toilet paper and is mumbling through a large baguette stuffed in his mouth.
Meiro Koizumi, Human Opera XXX, 2007, 17 min , Single Channel Video
Courtesy: Nicole Klagsburn Gallery, New York

Though the man looks completely silly, there is nothing humorous about his story or the way he tells it, and the spectacle of his awkward positioning and gestures actually seems to add to his depth and courage as a protagonist who is confessing his personal tragedy to strangers. As Tamir makes clear in her own writing, the seemingly neutral act of documenting people speaking about themselves is never objective or uncomplicated and, in these cases, consistently becomes “a loaded exercise in power dynamics.”

Those power dynamics are made overt in the other videos in the show, particularly in Israeli artists Maayan Amir and Ruti Sela’s Beyond Guilt (2003-05) video trilogy. Interviewing clientele at seedy nightclubs in Tel Aviv, the videos chronicle a host of unique personalities that are formed in opposition to, or indirectly as a result of, cultural and political tensions in the city.

Maayan Amir and Ruti Sela, video still from Beyond Guilt, 2003-2005

The variety of personae that are presented to the camera throughout the show not only underscore the performativity of everyday life, but also raise questions about the role of the camera in documentary photography and video practices. While the idea that the camera is in some way objective, truthful or disinterested seems clichéd in contemporary art theory, in practice it still seems to provide a mediating distance between artist and subject and serves as a kind of excuse for the confessional narrators to open up to the artist in a way they would not without the presence of the camera.

My only complaint with the show are the provisional looking particle board benches that are provided at each viewing station. Although they’re visually cohesive and unique, they’re also uniquely uncomfortable and their design made it almost impossible to read the wall captions and determine who made each piece. Otherwise, “Life Stories” is pretty flawless; carefully curated, it provides a considered survey of the subtleties and political implications of documentary-style video practice and offers a wealth of complexities to consider over multiple viewings.

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