I saw a program of works by the experimental filmmaker and video artist Vincent Grenier. It was introduced by artist Madison Brookshire, a former student of Grenier who made a moving tribute to his former mentor. Brookshire convinced that Grenier was a special professor. Indeed, one came away from the evening more convinced of Grenier's status as an educator than as an artist. A couple of the works shown impressed me greatly, but many stood out for their paucity.
The earliest piece, "Light Shaft", was a minor but amusingly playful work of geometric abstraction. Windows became cubes of light that danced with each other within the frame. They competed with each other for space, the dominance of one or the other threatening to, ironically, obliterate all geometric representation within the frame which is, of course, itself a square of light.
By far my favorite works of the evening were two later short films, of about 15 minutes each. The silent "Time's Wake" evokes both domesticity and nature, the exterior of a dwelling property. Through footage suggesting the upkeep of a garden it seems to instill a sense of a lifetime. An order is imposed through shaping and shearing, meant to demonstrate a presence that is itself effaced by the imposition of nature's reclaiming in the aftermath of a proprietor's existence. In a way the film takes on a cosmic meaning, suggesting the arc of human history and its end.
The first sound work of the evening was "Out in the Garden" from 1991. It featured a man in middle age within, once again, his wooded domicile. A series of static shots shows the man speaking to, it eventually becomes clear, his same-sex partner. Brookshire had claimed a cubistic quality to Grenier's aesthetic, and it was only with this film that I fully sensed that. The monolog is broken up and rearranged, suggestions of different emotions brazenly contrasted with each other. We eventually realize the man is fairly stoically discussing his forthcoming death from AIDS. Through the figure's words we develop an intense intimacy with mortality itself.
The remaining several pieces shown were all video works made since 2013. "Watercolor (Fall Creek)" is a very pretty looking series of close-ups of water flowing through a stream. The piece had a geographical intimacy that made it passably interesting in and of itself. However, with the subsequent works one came to realize that Grenier devoted the rest of his career to... close-ups of flowing water. The effect was rather like seeing a painting in a museum that one finds just passably interesting and then coming to learn (we've all been there) that the artist only painted variations on this middling work their whole career.
While it didn't detract from the power of "Time's Wake" and "Out in the Garden", the cumulative "flowing water" videos ultimately left me rolling my eyes.
