Kim Anno’s current exhibition includes three video works and a series of oil paintings on linen and aluminum. The paintings are made with her unique technique using antiquarian book pages that are rearranged, collaged, erased, and folded by hand and with photographic tools. She ponders impossible questions about the point in history when humanity took a “wrong turn” in the slow/fast evolution towards climate change. She looks at animals, their domesticity, and the human impulse to exoticize. The animals are paired with iconic Western emblems of civil society that are referenced in unlikely juxtapositions.
Clearly, there is a conflict present, but the interpretation is open. There is a poetic painted space, and images float in ethereal grounds, searching for unattainable markers of time. Here, Anno reflects on beauty, knowledge, and culpability.
Two videos will be screened on a loop in the Minnesota Street Project screening room, Signs directed by Anno and Excavate directed by Charles Woodman.
Signs, an 8-minute experimental film poses existential questions about human relationships with animals, particularly in light of climate change. With music by composer and singer, Anne Hege, this work is emblematic of Anno’s legacy of short films, including her series: Men and Women in Water Cities (2023). Charles Woodman contributed digitally manipulated images, with Zachary Epcar as assistant editor.
Signs is accompanied by Woodman’s Excavate, his new 14-minute experimental video work, directed by Thomas Burrit. Belinda Reyolds is the composer, with percussion and vocals by the University of Texas Percussion Ensemble.
Please join us for a reception on Saturday, September 9 from 4-6 pm in our second-floor gallery at Minnesota Street Project.
Animals’ Reading Room is on view through Saturday, October 28.
