Ballroom : Solo Exhibition, Screening Gallery, Philadelphia

Abstract

November 6 - December 27, 2009 Screening is proud to present Lynne Marsh's spellbinding video loop Ballroom. Ballroom presents a woman, athletic and glamorous, suspended upside down in the centre of a dancehall—the Rivoli Ballroom in South London—her glittering sequined costume reflecting light, like a mirror ball, onto the backdrop of a sumptuous interior. As she spins around with increasing speed, sending the reflections whirling, the soundtrack reaches a crescendo. The theatrical spectacle, similar to a magician-illusionist or circus-aerial act, leaves the audience wondering if they are witness to an illusion or a real event producing a subtle uncanniness. The work also calls into question the nature of mediated spaces like the Rivoli Ballroom. Having entered into the popular conscious through appearances in music videos (The Rivoli was used for Tina Turner's Private Dancer video amongst others), film and now video art, such spaces maintain a presence not just in a physical location, but in the collective memory and imagination as well. Ballroom makes use of the aesthetics of game spaces and animation to fuse figure with object and architectural space. The video work creates a more complex phenomenal space where a filmed location appears as simulation and/or an imaginary space is created through a reconfiguration of the 'real' world.