This exhibition by Melbourne-based video artist Caspar Zika explores the midway point between the absurd and the profound, and looks at the institution and the artist through the process of making and play. The downstairs gallery space at Richmond’s Place Gallery houses five works by Zika that expand on these dichotomies in a playful and engaging way.
The videos, all filmed on site at the gallery, unpack the process of making work in a contained and insightful manner. The flickering of two large-scale projected videos brighten and darken the space at staccato intervals. Three smaller screen-based works ask the viewer for a more intimate engagement with the visuals and use a slower pace to expand upon the themes. The films use stop motion animation and simple lighting trickery to engage with and transform the space in various ways.
One work can be considered an ode to the myth of Sisyphus. The video shows the artist playfully engaging with the constant cycle of hope and failure. Another shows the full process of creating an artwork only to have it erased again. The cyclical nature of art making and exhibition contexts can be reflected in the construction of the videos. The artist is interested in the gallery as an empty vessel, ready to be filled and emptied in constant oscillation. This process of cycling through various aspects of art and art making is underpinned by the simple palette of mostly black and white used in the videos. One slow paced video uses chroma key green as a device to allow further insight into the structural nature of video and video making.
At times funny and at times exhausting, the videos ground the artist’s understanding and intrigue with site specificity. His inquiry into what this can mean in relation to the presence and absence of the artist is fascinating. By using his own body in some of the works and not in others, we begin to understand the multiple and simultaneous possibilities for making and developing the artwork.
Building upon another show that Zika held at the same gallery in 2011, which looked at similar aspects of site-specificity, here Zika’s work is expanded and diversified to create a poignant and astute articulation of the exhibition’s overarching themes.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Episodes and Antidotes
By Caspar Zika
Place Gallery, Richmond
10 April – 4 May
