Leon Grodski de Barrera

Golden Dragon

2011-11-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

In the last few months I have been thinking about some work that I left off in 03 just before I started my last business. It's interesting having some freedom of mind now...the pieces are coming back as if 8 years haven't gone by.

I've been thinking about a piece called Golden Dragon which is a video of the sidewalk from my Brooklyn apartment in which I witness the bounds of the world of a 5 year old boy whom I know from the local Chinese takeout. I started cutting and manipulating the raw footage about a month ago after an 8 year hiatus. I'm going to cut the pieces I shot of "Austin" on the sidewalk along with all the other life. As he gets to the outer bounds of his play area on the public sidewalk below my window I am going to mark with a dot of color. Over the course of the sped up video, he will play and the invisible wall of his world will be built for us to see.

Around the same time, I shot a bunch of random one take videos that interested me and merely for that reason will post a couple in following posts. Maybe it will be a way for me to start talking to myself about this again.

Retrospective Inference: 9/11/01 - 9/11/11 in the shelves at The Scrap Exchange

2011-09-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

One enters The Scrap Exchange, a labyrinth collection of wires, mirrors, books, scraps, fabric, test tubes, almost any item you could imagine.

The Scrap Exchange is a place where value is given to scraps - throwaways gathered, presented and fashioned for sale, then chosen by a shopper for subsequent reuse. The space creates an extraordinary experience in what would might seem the most mundane. People who shop enter a realm of discovery, creation, innovation to use and reuse, matching the quotidian with the creative.

In this context I have embedded several audio visual elements on the shelves in different sections of the "store." One may stumble upon them, one may not, as they are embedded with other audio visual items that are actually for sale, the shopper may not know that the elements of the work are not for sale, creating the potential for a kind of unexpected happening. The entire space, including the included the added audio visual elements offers the viewer the chance to become aware that something out of the ordinary is at work, maybe a piece of art on the shelf, maybe an unedited film, maybe a cross reference of song to borrowed film, maybe a line that angers, incites or rings true. Or maybe not.

In this case, each of the added elements relates to September 11, 2001. Are the visitors to the space, in this mode of activity,even in the smallest way, undermining the kinds of behaviors that lead to such tragedies?

The audio visual elements themselves offer an experience in their own right. I am presenting a borrowed song, raw footage that I shot on September 12th, 2001 on the streets of Manhattan and a two composed video works that have played as elements in other installations that I have created. Each has a different feel, like the extreme and contradictory feelings of the day, offering comfort, defiance, anger, the desire to act, sadness...

As a way of consideringand remembering the events of September 11^th, 2001 and the cycles ofhistory into which we are born, you may find audio and video as you venturethrough the Scrap Exchange.

The title of this sitespecific presentation is Retrospective Inference. The work is by Leon Grodski de Barrera and is tailored tothe experience of the Scrap Exchange. The work includes:

-- The Scrap Exchange, its shelves, barrels, collections, pathways,inciting one to meander, as a body and in the mind, and to create andre-create.

-- Swift Nude _____, (video loop) by Leon Grodski deBarrera.

-- Raw Footage, (videoapp. 40 min) Walking in NYC, September 11 & 12, 2001shot by Leon Grodski de Barrera

-- Great Balls of Fire, (video 6:30) by Leon Grodski de Barrera,co-edited & co-produced with Pearl Gluck, featuring James E. Jones

-- Boeing 737, (audio 2:40) a song by the Low Anthem

2011-06-06T11:39:00.001-07:00

Remembering that we sometimes have to forget all habits & current life to know who and where we are & where we want to go and be.

Select footage of art installations.

2010-10-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

Miss Saigon Photoreal Helicopter Animation from US Tour

2010-10-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Helicopter Sequence Produced by Leon Grodski de Barrera of The Sushi Bar

Contact Leon Grodski de Barrera at leon@the-sushi-bar.com for rental of DVD for North American productions of Miss Saigon.

Show directed by Mitchell Lemsky

American Producer Big League Theatricals

Executive Producer Cameron Mackintosh
Animated by Jesse Seppi of Tronic Studios

Great Balls of Fire - Video Element from installation "The Study"

2010-10-14T10:33:00.000-07:00