The Wex often creates its own moments of self-reflection, looking back on earlier exhibitions as it looks forward to the new. In September 2019, such a moment occurred when one of the center’s earliest works – The Inbetween by Carole Ann Klonarides and Michael Owen (aka MICA-TV) – was screened in The Box. To accompany this screening, Curator of the Film/Video Studio, Jennifer Lange wrote a short essay on the Wex’s website (click the image below to read it).
Lange’s essay ends as follows:
The camera moves through the empty space as if driven by the building’s own internal force, while characters appear and disappear as though they are apparitions (or perhaps golems sprung from the building itself). Much like the Wex, Klonarides and Owen’s film is grounded in a specific historical moment, yet simultaneously exists beyond time.
One of these empty spaces was our very own galley B – here’s a production shot of the video included in the catalog Breakthroughs: Avant-Garde Artists in Europe and America, 1950-1990.
During her essay, Lange quotes from the interview with Lonarides and Owen, also included in the catalog. Towards the end of the interview, the interviewer (former Wex curator Sarah Rogers) asks:
At this point, given that you’re still in the process/idea phase, what is your fantasy of what the project will end up being? […] Your piece, probably unlike anyone else’s in the show, will still be able to exist in its completeness after the show is over.
The show has now been over for 40 years and Klonarides’ response speaks to that passing of time.
[L]ike everyone else, we’re still dependent upon context and an audience. And, as long as the building is received and talked about, the tape will have its own life but be enriched by that experience.
As we continue to ‘talk about’ gallery B here on the gallery B side, even when the Wex is closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still opportunities for us to receive and enrich our experiences of this special place.
For more about MICA-TV and The Inbetween, visit Electronic Arts Intermix.
