ICA Assingment

Felix Garcia
Sept. 30, 2007
Digital Art 297

My trip to the Institute for Contemporary Art was definitely a new and engaging experience for me. It was my first trip to the institute and I really enjoyed seeing all the many different works on display. The large mural near the entrance named, The Divine Gas, by Chiho Aoshima was quite a breathtaking and colorful visual to witness upon entering the building. The amount of detail and not to mention the sheer size was a lot to take in. Another of the institute's works that I looked for was Dave McKenzie's video, Present Tense, which was full of usual and bizarre images and scenes loaded with metaphors. A few other exhibits I feel are worth mentioning are Josiah McElheny's elegant piece Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely, Julian Opie's digitally animated Suzanne Walking in Leather Skirt, and two videos done by Christian Jankowski, The Hunt, a very short but very funny clip about a man that “hunts” his groceries with a bow and arrow, and Point of Sale, three eighteen minute color videos projected on three separate screens that showcases a consultants interview of an art dealer and an elderly electronics store owner whose shop is in the same building as the art dealer's gallery. I thought it was a very amusing and effective video because each interviewee gave the other's responses to the questions and it really gave insight into certain aspect of the relationship between business and art.
Of the various works in the ICA, I chose to focus on Wrong Number Karaoke, by Rachel Perry Weltz, who lives in Needham Massachusetts and was a finalist in the James and Audrey Foster Prize, which earned her the chance to display her artwork as part of the ICA's Accumulations exhibit. This six minute and fifty-two second digital video, played on a flat-screen television set, features the artist, Weltz herself, sitting in front of the camera lip-syncing to a number of messages left on her answering machine by several different people, all of whom accidentally dialed the wrong number. Weltz sits completely still starring blankly into the camera until the messages start, and then she takes on facial expressions that seem almost perfectly mimic the demeanor suggested by the voices of the callers. This work stood out to me because it was really different from the traditional expectations and assumptions of what is considered art. I didn't expect to see a video such as this in a museum. What I also liked about this piece was that, though it seems fairly straight-forward and simple on the surface, it really draws attention to certain aspects of modern society and people's reliance on technology. Weltz was able bring so many different emotions into this piece; there were funny moments when she imitated the stereotypical characteristics of a grumpy office worker, or a very cheerful young woman, and there were sad moments where she seems emulate the emotions of an older lady trying to reach a friend she really needed to speak with. I felt that the artist effectively created an illuminating perspective of the society we live today.