Ongoing Time Stabbed with a Dagger was Farmer’s first kinetic sculpture that added a cinematic character to an “ever-reconfiguring play presented in real time.” The assembly of various objects and props on top of a large platform constitutes not only a work, but, to a certain extent, a show in itself. The title of the piece comes from the literal translation of René Magritte’s painting from 1938, La Durée Poignardée , whose more familiar translation is “Time Transfixed.”
Geoffrey Farmer borrows equally from the traditions of installation and conceptual art to create carefully staged works that emphasize temporality and fiction, and examine history, art history, and popular culture. His interest in theatricality is particularly evident in pieces like Theater of Cruelty (2009) and And Finally the Street Becomes the Main Character [Clock] (2008) in which various fragments are assembled into epic narratives. Through these stagings, Farmer critiques modernity’s construction of history, temporality, and fiction.
Untitled (Grate I/II: Shan Mei Playground/ Grand Fortune Mansion) is part of a series drawn from architectural objects that mark the boundary of public and private spaces Wong encountered while strolling in Hong Kong...
Though the title might suggest an Adonis, Jeffry Mitchell’s The Swimmer (2012) is a squat, jolly man with a protuberant belly...
Itch explores the relationship between technology and daily human experience with a motorized arm that extends from within the gallery’s wall, moving up and down while holding a projector that shows a desperately scratching pair of hands....
Milena Bonilla’s discursive practice explores connections among economics, territory, and politics through everyday interventions...
State Terrorism in the ultimate form of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood features a portrait of the artist wearing a zipped utilitarian jacket reminiscent of a worker’s uniform, with one arm behind his back as if forced to ingest a bundle of stick—a literal portrayal to the definition of fascism...
The photographic quality of the film Baobab is not only the result of a highly sophisticated use of black and white and light, but also of the way in which each tree is characterized as an individual, creating in the end a series of portraits...
Houck’s Peg and John was made as part of a series of photographic works that capture objects from the artist’s childhood...
The central point of Vanishing Point is the most direct physiological reaction of the body to the environment...
Continuing Oursler’s broader exploration of the moving image, Absentia is one of three micro-scale installations that incorporate small objects and tiny video projections within a miniature active proscenium...
Hako (2006) depicts a mysterious and dystopic landscape where the world becomes flat: distance between different spaces, depth of field and three-dimensional perceptions are canceled...
The Last Post was inspired by Sikander’s ongoing interest in the colonial history of the sub-continent and the British opium trade with China...
In her masterpiece 8 Possible Beginnings or The Creation of African-America , Walker unravels just that, the story of struggle, oppression, escape and the complexities of power dynamics in the history following slave trade in America...
In the series Horizons (2010), Lipps uses appropriation to riff on Modernism’s fascination with abstract form...
The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...
Reborn, 2010 is a three-channel video by Desiree Holman that questions ideas of motherhood and the maternal instinct...