Saturday, July 19, 2014

Dara Friedman at MOCAD



Simple, enjoyable, almost commercial like, recalling Apple’s early ipod campaign sans gloss, the work would almost seem sketches for Doug Aitken, or homage to the dance down the streets of Carax’s Mauvis Sang, were it not for the recent and complicated Play. There’s only 5 minutes here, but the narrative flips, charismatic actors, and unexplained circumstances make it compelling, there’s immediate narrative: a chase, whose “participants” are nude, unexplained, then we move back to answer some plot, but the discussion resolves little, and then back to the chase, capture and climax. The sort of structural play could become endless formal exercise, and the sexual layer could seem a ham-fisted easy way to “content,” and never resolving could seem conceptually masturbatory, but at least its enjoyable.