NEW YORK, NY.- An exhibition of two video installations by Willie Doherty opened at
Alexander and Bonin last week.
UNFINISHED, 2010 is a two-channel video installation made specifically for this exhibition.
The camera examines the interiors of two large warehouses through a sequence of slow pans and static images. This is accompanied by a recording of a harrowing account from an anonymous man of his experience of being taken hostage and held in a similar space. The narrative is fragmented and split as the two video sequences alternate between views of the ominous interiors and the man who struggles to piece together a version of his ordeal. The temporal gap between the two events creates a level of uncertainty and doubt about the authenticity of what the viewer sees and hears. This ambiguity is compounded as the act of storytelling is revealed as being as compromised and as fallible as human memory itself.
BURIED, 2009 a single-channel video installation, was commissioned by The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh and formed the center of a one-person exhibition in Spring 2009. Functioning as a companion of sorts to Ghost Story (2007), BURIED furthers Doherty’s inspection into the memory of past events in common or public spaces. Tracing slowly through a dim wooded area the remnants of human intervention are disarming in their duality of banality and menace. The mix of archival sounds with the quietude of the spaces in the video help to elevate the sense of post-storm calm.
Willie Doherty was born 1959 in Derry, Northern Ireland where he continues to live and work. In 2006 he was the subject of a video survey organized by Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City and, in 2007, represented Northern Ireland at the Venice Biennale. Since then, Doherty has had one-person museum exhibitions at Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Münich, Hamburger Kunstverein, Dallas Museum of Art and Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto. Later this year he will premiere a new video installation at Manifesta 8 in Murcia, Spain.
