Blindseye Arranger (Max)

2013 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Brian Bress

location: Los Angeles, California
year born: 1975
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: Norfolk, Virginia

Blindseye Arranger (Max) (2013) features a greyscale arrangement of rudimentary shapes layered atop one another like a dense cluster of wood block prints, the juxtaposition of sharp lines and acute angles creating an abstracted field of rectangular and triangulated forms composed as if in a cubist landscape. As the video progresses, however, a disembodied hand begins to move these forms, animating a pictorial frame that was previously still. The hand – ostensibly the “arranger” of the works title – functions as a metonym of the artist’s hand, quite literally bringing a motionless work to life. The hand in Blindseye Arranger , though, also signals a shift towards the performative, functioning as a reminder that all works of art are created by a maker’s “hand” and, in such, are never fully separate from the context in which they are made. Bress’s gesture towards interdisciplinarity in his work, by extension, signals an important moment in which questions of medium-specificity give way to more trenchant inquiries into notions of authorship and creative process.


Although originally trained in filmmaking and animation, Brian Bress explores the influence of pictorial traditions on contemporary media-based practices. His single-shot videos utilize painterly effects such as geometric abstraction to create visual compositions that blur presumed boundaries between contemporary media-based work and more traditional disciplines such as sculpture and painting. His work is deliberately processed-based and his videos, by extension, explore how visual motifs “evolve” over time through as a viewer engages with a given object or image. Animated figures and actors – such as disembodied hands – disrupt these seemingly still frames, repositioning these works in the context of film while also suggesting the presence of the artist’s hand. Bress’s videos may seem overtly indebted to creative lineages, and his images frequently border on the surreal. But in gesturing towards past works, his videos signal the emergence of creative practices enabled through technological advancements while also offering a meditation on a durational aesthetics privileged in media-based work.


Colors:



Other related works, blended automatically

Untitled (from the Hill of Poisonous Tree Series)
© » KADIST

Dinh Q. Lê

2008

Hill of Poisonous Trees (three men) (2008) exemplifies the artist’s signature photo-weaving technique, in which he collects diverse found photographs—portraits of anonymous people, stills from blockbuster films, or journalistic images—cuts them into strips, and weaves them into new composition...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Jedediah Caesar

2009

For Untitled, Caesar encased recycled objects such as scraps of plywood, paper or cloth in resin and then cut and reassembled the pieces into abstract forms...

The Transparencies of the Non-Act
© » KADIST

Mario Garcia Torres

Mario Garcia Torres discovered the work of artist Oscar Neuestern in an article published in ARTnews in 1969...

One Universe, One God, One Nation
© » KADIST

Yin-Ju Chen

One Universe, One God, One Nation was inspired by Hannah Arendt’s analysis of space exploration and by the astrological horoscope of Chinese political and military leader Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975)...

Cinema
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2013

In the work Cinema , Fang Lu explores in a meticulous yet un-dramatic — almost casual — way of how “the self” in our today’s life is a controlled and staged construction of oneself...

Ante la imagen
© » KADIST

Oscar Munoz

2009

In Ante la imagen (Before the Image, 2009) Muñoz continues to explore the power of a photograph to live up to the memory of a specific person...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Gabriel Sierra

2010

Untitled consists of a small wooden sculpture that leans against a wall...

Tarantism
© » KADIST

Joachim Koester

2007

Tarantism is the name of disease which appeared in southern Italy, resulting from the bite of a spider called Tarantula...

Shadows V, Set of 3
© » KADIST

Charles Gaines

1980

To make his series Shadows (1980), Gaines subjected 20 potted plants to a uniform procedure...

One Minute To Act A Title: Kim Jong Il Favorite Movies
© » KADIST

Mario Garcia Torres

2005

Mario Garcia Torres films a game of Charades among professional actors guessing the former North Korean dictator’s favorite Hollywood films...

Until It Makes Sense
© » KADIST

Mario Garcia Torres

2004

Mario Garcia Torres imagines cinematic devices to replay stories occasionally forgotten by Conceptual art...

Island
© » KADIST

Kan Xuan

2006

In Kan Xuan’s four-channel video Island , a series of objects like nail clippers, hairbrush, toothpaste, and house decorations are shot in close-ups...

!Women Art Revolution
© » KADIST

Lynn Hershman Leeson

2010

Hershman Leeson’s documentary, Women Art Revolution (W...

War Footage
© » KADIST

Mauricio Ancalmo

2010

War Footage is a series of wall-mounted works composed of 16mm film leader, tightly bound to flag-shaped panels by the artist...

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

This research-based artwork acts as a memorial to early twentieth century European exploration of China...

Made in Heaven
© » KADIST

Mark Leckey

2004

In Made In Heaven , we are face to face with a sculptural apparition, a divine visitation in the artist’s studio...

No World
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2014

No World is an action-filled video work filmed inside an abandoned museum in the Songzhuang area outside Beijing...