VNY

Recently visited the exhibit Jump Cuts: Venezuelan Contemporary Art at the Americas Society in NYC. A small three-room show of contemporary Venezuelan artists. One was a video by Javier Téllez called "The Lion of Caracas" (2004), projected in its own room, a darkened bench to sit & watch. Video of a car procession panning shot in a hillside barrio of Caracas. Four police officers with bullet-proof vests, helmets carry a huge stuffed lion through the alleys and steep paths of the neighborhood, quick portraits of residents who stop to watch or inquire about the lion's procession. Down a hill to a small plaza where neighborhood children gather around the lion, some of them poke his eyes or touch his fangs. The 5 minute loop begins again as the cars turn a corner into that section of Caracas, almost rural sidewalks.

Just outside this viewing room, Luis Molina Pantin has a diptych of chromogenic copies, full color lithographs: "Caracas-Guayana" (1997). On the left the multi-colored apartment blocks of the 23 de Enero neighborhood, on the right an Amazonian water fall, multiple greens in blown-up photo realism. The exhibit has work by more than two dozen artists and is up until May 21.