GLOW
1998 | video installation, endless/seamless loop, variable dimensions, Edition of 5, Installation view: Albright-Knox Art Gallery
COLLECTIONS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery (USA)
SELECTED PRESS
The Guardian, Alan Sykes (review)
Albright-Knox, Holly E. Hughes (tumblr post)
Buffalo News, Colin Dabkowski (blog)
“Glow is one of Richardson’s earliest works to involve video. It is intentionally simple, beguiling, and infuriating. We see the ‘wrong’ side of a television screen, and are only able to imagine what it is on the screen from the glow of light that it emits, which bounces off a wall. We are denied access to the story on the screen, and have to create it inside our imagination. We could accept that the flicker of colour and light is a form of abstract painting, or ambient video using only coloured light – but few of us can resist the impulse to storytelling. As Richardson’s work shows us a screen at second-hand, this is clearly a work made for a TV screen that asks precisely why we are insistently drawn to looking at screens. Even by the 1970s, the average North American teenager spent over 10,000 hours staring at such a box before reaching adulthood. What is it that is so mesmerising, though? By subtracting so many elements from the ‘normal’ experience of looking at a screen, Richardson allows us to formulate an answer.” Alistair Robinson (NGCA) for ‘Kelly Richardson: The Last Frontier‘
Photo credits: Kelly Richardson