MADONNA X-STaTIC PRO=CeSS VIDEO INSTALLATION #5

While the combination of absurdity and sincerity can turn deadly (a not uncommon problem for both Madonna and fashion photographers), trust Klein to balance it with a few oddly thrilling moments and a slew of images too slippery, too ephemeral to process except as dreams. There are four other pieces at Deitch, all sited at the far end of LOT/EK's brutally industrial, silver-sheathed shooting ranges; the darkened space feels less like an amusement arcade than a torture chamber, complete with gunshots and electronic blips. Since Klein was making video and still photos simultaneously, he was able to bring several of his pictures to life in three of the installations here. In one, Madonna sits beside herself, one figure almost immobilized in a gold-encrusted red gown and headdress, the other stretched out in a leotard and tights on a bare mattress draped with piece of vivid blue silk (when Klein uses color in his gray spaces, you can almost taste it). Both figures execute a series of stiff, stuttered gestures, the one on the bed raising and lowering her bare arms in stylized movements whose elegance is undercut by the video's jump-cut repetitions. At one point, she turns to look at us, but her glance slides away, and she cups a hand over her eyes as if to shield them from our gaze. It's the perfect Madonna performance: She's tantalizingly present but elusive-a siren, a cipher, a phantom.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• madonna
• steven
• klein
• 2003
• video
• art
• exhibition
• magazine

[mommapuddin]

Completely pointless and stupid.

[canaboytoy77]

@mommapuddin That is just one opinion of many.

[hhtwbps]

it amazes me what people consider art

[AnastaciaBoy]

this song is so creapy!