Double Vision

Robin Holland

Faith in chance, beauty, mutability: some Untitled (1997­98) photographs installed at Matthew Marks

Details

Peter Fischli­ David Weiss
Matthew Marks Gallery
522 West 22nd Street
Through March 20

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More About

• Peter Fischli
• David Weiss
• Marina Abramovic
• Louise Wilson
• Lauf der

Everything you're seeing in these three projections is in motion. The six projectors hum and clack as images meld, fade, vanish, and re-form. These changing slides are the exact opposite of those super­speeded-up films of flowers blooming. Here, Fischli-Weiss make time concrete by slowing things down, reduplicating them, showing you process and structure, rather than growth. Vision is fast, they seem to concede, but it also comes in stages.

The last room is the best. Fischli-Weiss's low-definition sensibilities are applied to three high-definition television sets. Their still, tourist photographs slowly fade on and off these incredibly clear monitors, one image over the other. It's mesmerizing, like gazing into fire. Sit here and peer into the silent screens; watch the infinite, uninflected parade of airports, hotels, harbors, gardens, and cities. You will think no thoughts in this gallery turned cave, yet you will feel paradoxically stimulated and serene. In Antarctica, this stare is called "big eye." Fischli-Weiss's exhibition induces a kind of "big mind." You won't remember specific images from this show, but you will know that you were freed from the busy pace of your life, that these artists suspended routine, let you remember slowness, made time grow hazy, and almost caused place to disappear.