Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib

Ice Box project space at the Crane Arts building “The soft epic or: the savages of the pacific west.”
Review by Joseph DiGiuseppe

“The soft epic or: the savages of the pacific west”
by Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib

Friday night lights, mights, maybes and the possibilities for Artadelphia. You know the icebox project space, aka the space that typically no one uses well in Olde Kensington? Well, someone(s) did it.

Currently in the IceBox is Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib’s video installation.

one word: captivating
a few more: sensational, slightly politically subversive, utopian??

"The soft epic or: the savages of the pacific west," is a 100 foot long projection which appears to be seamless, aside from the 'weak' pixels on the edge of every projection. The video displays collapsed buildings on fire, cascading water fountains or geysers (I can’t tell), birds flying across the entire length of the image, animals, humans, human animal hybrids. I've also noticed the right side was more destroyed then the left: maybe some political bias?

Nadia and Matthew’s press release described the soft epic as a Hieronymus Bosch-esque collage and it may be reminiscent of his famous triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights." However, it disregards the utopian aspect of Bosch's painting and if you’ve ever stood in front of The Garden of Earthly Delights it's tiny in comparison and affects you differently in terms of experience. I also wouldn't compare my own work to someone who is huge style famous. That seems pretty gimmicky, why would I come see this show? Oh I like Hieronymus! I must like this! Artists aren’t bands. But rather brands! However the video did include a leopard fucking a person from behind, something I think Bosch would have enjoyed.

Regardless of the press release, I went because I heard how big it was. The video stands on its own and is by far the best use of the Crane Arts Ice Box Project space.

Nadia and Matthew’s video collage forces me to stir up Tin Kin’s “Because Washington is Hollywood for Ugly people.” Tin Kin’s video collages and web based Internet art projects attack political topics by disregarding discussion and jumping immediately into argument. “BWIHFUP” is a series of fast moving, mesmerizing imagery coupled with poetry by MC Paul Barman delivering a hypnotic video forcing you the buy everything he is selling, thus brain-washing you.

Nadia and Matthew’s video isn’t selling anything, they are providing you with complicated metaphors to explore and digest. I’d suggest to go and digest the soft epic, if anything it’s a pretty marvelous sight to see.

I love you,
Joe

[Joseph DiGiuseppe is a founding member of Art Making Machine Studios and Fluxspace, as well as an artist recently featured in "Given Enough Eyeballs" at Esther Klein Gallery.]



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