OHT Gallery Boston

Previous Exhibits

Strobe

Modular Video Installations
Ray Rapp

May 2 - 24, 2003
Reception: Friday, May 2, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

O·H+T gallery is pleased to present Strobe, from Ray Rapp's ongoing series "Modular Video Installations." This piece consists of a site specific arrangement of plastic laminate panels onto which several video monitors have been mounted. Each installation plays a unique selection of videos. In Strobe, the videos are conceived around Edward Muybridge's motion study photographs. Rapp addresses the format and commercial references in these works. "..the video presentation is in the form of an infomercial. Panels come with one tv...or two tvs...or three tvs...panels come in red...or blue... . Sort of like William Wegman's deadpan dumb commercials (how to make log cabin toast), but taking it to the level of art work."

Strobe retains a sense of Rapp's earlier work where he hung disassembled tvs throughout the space, or scattered them on the floor. Mounting the tvs on panels, Rapp gives this installation a more minimal look and focuses on the video image. Four Muybridge photographs (acrobat, horse, boxer and elephant) have been downloaded from the internet then cut, pasted, and reanimated. Rapp removes these images from their familiar horizontal sequence and reintroduces them, colorized and flashing. Muybridge's movement studies are taken to a new level, freeing them from two-dimensional limitations to surround the viewer with a pulsing rhythm. Finally, the images disappear, leaving an arrangement of blank video screens tinted red, blue, and yellow. This final stage of the installation suggests a glowing Mondrian-like grid.

The exhibition also includes a selection of Rapp's computer generated prints. These narrow, vertical pieces are also reminiscent of Muybridge. Repeated stills of rolling truck tires, video feedback, and horses, suggest the mechanical movement of the original Muybridge sequences.

Ray Rapp lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He has shown extensively in New York, as well as nationally and internationally. His work is included in the collections of The Brooklyn Museum, Musée du Petit Format, Belgium, and the Library of Congress. This is his first exhibition at O·H+T gallery.