18:00 min.
Shot in 2010, A Picture Gallery centers around a single picture frame in a museum gallery. Instead of a painting, the frame opens onto a mise en abyme in which other scenes from the video play simultaneously, one inside the other.
The episodes unfold around the painting, the empty focal point of the visitors’ attention. The actors discuss the absent picture, listen to a museum guide’s lecture, argue, or attempt to make contact with strangers. Although they avoid mentioning any particular painting, the scripts are roughly based on the classical genres of painting: portraiture, landscape, history, genre, still life. The individual episodes are unrelated, and although the present version of the video follows a certain sequence, the scenes could conceivably be shown in any order or looped.
Echoing the theme of repetition and simultaneity in the video, the music in the intervals between scenes presents variations on a simple fugue played forward, backward, and inverted.
Script, Direction, and Music Geoffrey Garrison
Camera Daniel Erb
Sound Heimo Lattner
Starring Kimberly Bradley; Niina, Stella, and Milan Braun; Jason Burgess; Martha Fessehatzion; Geoffrey Garrison; Jennifer Kelly; Andreas Luge; Sophia New; Britta Schill; Peter Scollin; Ivan Seal; Christian Serritiello; Tomas Spencer; Vajra Spook
Acknowledgments Thanks to Tobias Sternberg for helping with the construction of the set; to Jason Burgess, Rebecca Loyche, and Jonathan Gröger at MMX Open Art Venue; to Suni Hoffmann for help with the guard's costume; and to Britta Schill.