10/05/2021
Opening Friday night:
“Blossom End Rot”
Marit Liang
3:33 min
2020
Blossom End Rot stages semi-figurative, miniature ceramic ‘actors’ and ‘set pieces,’ reminiscent of traditional Chinese gongshi (scholar’s stones) as well as modernist sculpture of de Kooning, Bourgeois, Hepworth, and Arp, within the framing techniques of cinema (shot composition, lighting, focus pulls, camera movements, etc.). Audio assemblage or pastiche samples clips of Asian and western classic films and art films evoking the dangerous liaisons of film noir – voices and music that seem to emerge from or speak to the ceramic figures. Meanwhile, a latex-gloved hand manipulates a milkweed pod, and low-resolution DV footage captures the traces of a mare in a field at dusk. Fertility and abundance conspire with decay and dissolution to evoke the endangered yet generative qualities that flow across nature, bodies/objects (animal, vegetable, and mineral), sexualities, affects, cinematic time, and transcultural memory.
Marit Liang is an artist and filmmaker based in New York City. She completed her MFA at Bard College in December 2020. Her work has been shown at Other Subjects, 182 Ave C, Plexus Projects and Aeon Books, NYC, as well as numerous film festivals around the country and world.
