Writing to you with a bag of mini pretzels, heavily recycled air, and from some 30,000 odd miles in the sky on the flight to Salt Lake City. Some things I learned this morning: (1) just because you are on a 6:50 am flight does not mean you’ll breeze by ticketing and security. (2) TSA gives you very strange looks when you bring varia such as video projectors, extension cords, an artist’s lightbox, etc through security.
Luckily, we all made it onto the packed plane, and are snuggling in with the Valentine’s Day ski bunny travelers for the 5 hour flight! I thought this would be the perfect point to write about the work of caraballo-farman, a two person team composed of Abou Farman and Leonor Caraballo who work in video, installation, and photography. The two have been working together since 2001, and have shown widely at the Canada Council for the Arts, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, the Tate Modern, LAXART, the Havana Biennial, and many more.
We had the chance to recently visit the new fordProject space on West 57th Street in Manhattan, where caraballo-farman is part of their inaugural exhibition, Where the Fairytale Never Ends curated by Lara Pan. The show highlights the whimsical nature in caraballo-farman’s work beautifully in a converted townhouse space.
caraballo-farman, Through the Garden of Earthly Delights, 2008
In Utah, we’re installing their 2008 video, Through the Garden of Earthly Delights. The duo shot displays of elaborate Christmas lights and glowing holiday icons in six different states, then stitched them together to appear as a single, unending string of yards. This is the only piece in the show that does not have direct human presence. Instead, figures like Santa Claus, snowmen, and sledders made of led lights stand in as the subjects in the video. They are recognizable referents which simultaneously call attention to the joy and fantasy of Christmastime, and also Americans’ commercialization of what is by nature a Christian holiday.
Yours (from seat 25F),
Jill
