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Winchester ReduxPost an Event »

Catharine Clark Gallery

March 15 - April 20, 2008

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248 Utah Street
 San Francisco, CA 94103
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Video Project Room: Winchester Redux (2004) by the late, renowned digital artist Jeremy Blake (1971 – 2007) is an abridged version of the artist’s acclaimed Winchester Trilogy. It was produced in conjunction with Creative Time’s presentation of The 59th Minute: Cowboy Waltz (2003), a project in which a selection of 60 second clips from Blake’s video work was presented on an Astrovision screen in Times Square, New York. Winchester Trilogy, Cowboy Waltz, and Winchester Redux were inspired by Blake’s interest in the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. In 1884 Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune, began construction on a sprawling mansion in the superstitious belief that the protracted construction would protect her from the restless Native American spirits killed by Winchester Rifles. Construction lasted 38 years, during which time the architectural framework became increasingly bizarre and included stairwells that lead to nowhere and sealed rooms. In his video work on this subject, Blake combined 8mm film footage, static 16mm shots of old photographs, hundreds of ink drawings, and intricate frame-by-frame digital retouching to create what he considered “moving paintings.” Blake’s interest in the mansion was based on his feeling that the house represents more than just a testament to an individual’s descent into madness: “it is the tangible outcome from a collision of social and historical narratives.” Jeremy Blake’s work is well regarded internationally, and has been collected by and shown in major national and international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. He also produced the animated abstract sequences in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Punch Drunk Love (2002) and contributed artwork and video for musical artist Beck’s album Sea Change (2002). His work was featured in a solo exhibition this winter at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. This exhibition of Jeremy Blake’s Winchester Redux is organized by Christian L. Frock and presented in collaboration with Creative Time, New York.