PLAY & REWIND: Ode to Summer on Film

Play & Rewind: Ode to Summer on Film, showcased film and video installations that evoke sensations of summer. The title refers to recreation and leisure as it plays out on screen and alludes affectionately to times past.  Notes of nostalgia prevail in many of the works with artists adopting analogue and traditional approaches to media—utilizing constructed and found materials, 3-D and slide projection, as well as 8mm and 16mm film.

By and large, the exhibition featured works that incorporate methods of layering and collaging to produce imagery with non-linear narratives that unfold quixotically like a palimpsest—images that build atop one another and leave faint traces of what came before.  Such methods of storytelling hint at parallels between the act of reminiscing and the nature of working with film where scenes are cut, sequenced, and often reordered to suggest meaning. Guests will encounter immersive spaces, as inherently 2-dimensional images extend physically into the galleries by way of hand-crafted elements, inflatable balls, and beach chairs.   

The exhibition presented the work of younger artists including Trisha Baga, Phil Collins, Laida Lertxundi, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, and Cengiz Tekin alongside luminaries such as photographer Tina Barney and the abstract painter Agnes Martin whose only film, Gabriel, will be shown. The exhibition visualizes pastimes spent on beaches, yards, fields, and interiors in the Hudson Valley, New England, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, and Europe.