Some are enigmatic, some have a streak of whimsy, some star the artist. They all pull the viewer in.
Weston Art Gallery's summer exhibit, titled Moving Images, fills the two floors of the Aronoff Center's gallery space with 15 short black-and-white films and videos by Alison Crocetta.
In one, Crocetta blows up a mass of transparent plastic balls. In another, the silhouette of an old-fashioned circus train (with a menagerie of beasties) runs on a 'track' across the screen. In a four-screen "three-ring circus," performers present eccentric if less than death-defyng acts.
"I was struck by her work. There's a beauty reminiscent of early silent films, simple and sophisticated at the same time," said Dennis Harrington of the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in explaining why he chose it for the exhibit.
Crocetta, an Ohio State University faculty member whose background is live performance and sculpture, said, "I'm interested in the capacity of the human body to shift the built environment," referencing how filling the above-mentioned clear plastic balls with her breath "transforms the space with my ephemera." (Or her exhaled breath fills a space previously filled with something else.)
"It's so cool," said my "docentito" Sam Kerns, 11, from Erlanger and looking forward to entering sixth grade in the fall.
This is the 15th summer for Docentitos, the Weston's summer youth docent program, which turns 9- to 12-year-olds into arts ambassadors. This year, there are 10 docentitos. "I invented the word," said program director Kelly O'Donnell. "It's the diminutive of 'docent' in Spanish."
Sam is in his third year as a docentito, and he embodies what the program strives to do - the kids charm gallery visitors with their surprising knowledge and refreshing perspectives.
Sam, armed with notecards at the final docentito rehearsal the day before Moving Images opened, guided me through the show, and chatted about the program along the way.
"I love it," he made clear. A former art teacher told him about the program. "By far this is the best year - film intrigues me. I never thought of it as an art form." Sam confided that he's started experimenting, making his own short videos.
We started in the upper gallery where trilogy "Clear/Fill/Reveal" is projected inside a funnel-like wooden structure that mimics early camera bellows and allows for a single viewer at a time. Crocetta's head and hands are inside a white box where we're introduced to the artist's interest in transforming space.
"Clear" is one of Sam's two favorite entries in the entire exhibit. He's intrigued by what it has to say about "how we see, speak and hear."
In a later conversation, Crocetta agreed: "It relates to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Think no evil. That's the true release."
The circus train mentioned above is called "Track," and Sam pointed out how Crocetta pulled her moving train along with a string. He observed that while the imagery is childlike and whimsical on the surface, all the animals are in some way a nuisance. "Kangaroos eat crops. Lions can be dangerous."
The docentitos had a session with Crocetta, where she explained her work and answered their questions. She echoed that she invites viewers into playful images "but it becomes more serious the longer you watch."
A handful of the silent films have soundtracks (headphones are provided), and Crocetta and Sam agree it's "very important" to take the time to listen to them.
"My interest in sound stems from my live performance work," Crocetta said. Like the human body, Crocetta believes "sound and spoken word can change an environment."
"S.O.S." enigmatically spells out distress code on a fogged mirror. Sam wonders, "What constitutes a call for help - When? Where? Why?"
A tour through Moving Images can be as short as 20 minutes or as long as an hour, depending on the amount of time a visitor spends with each film and in discussion with a docentito. Sam said he rehearsed at home for an hour a day during the two weeks of training to prepare as a tour guide.
Another trilogy is "Gather/Shed/Lift" in which Crocetta fills her transparent balls with 180 pounds worth of water which pull at her as she pulls at them. It makes us think about "how we collect burdens in life," Sam noted.
Sam's favorite film in Moving Images is "Shed," in which Crocetta sheds her burden. "It speaks to me." In "Lift," the balls waft on the breeze on a rooftop. "It feels wonderful, " Sam said. "They want to take flight."
Crocetta works hard to give her films "an ease" but they're labor intensive. "The productions are elaborate. 'Gather/Shed/Lift,' was four years in the making."
As we parted company, Sam said, "I encourage you to come back - a lot of the exhibits are really cool." He also promised that he'd be back next summer.
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