In the darkened main gallery of Hauser & Wirth, Anri Sala’s exhibition “A Second Look” presents three video works in sequence, announced in bursts of illuminating electricity. This suggests a narrative, albeit one that can be entered at any point. After Three Minutes, 2007, reveals images of a moon-bright cymbal that burn into the retina and invoke an absent drummer, a figure who can be understood as the thread linking this strikingly original reconsideration of the artist’s earlier works (including Three Minutes, 2004).
Air Cushioned Ride, 2006, documents a noisy encounter on a road trip. Listening to chamber music on public radio while driving in the American Southwest, Sala pulled into a rest stop, where a mass of parked trucks interfered with his radio signal: As he circled the vehicles, the chamber music was intermittently interrupted by country music from the local station. His camera documented the effect, and the resulting video’s sound track is an inspired cut-up. A Spurious Emission, 2007, elaborates on this happenstance event, documenting a country band and a baroque trio as they engage in a breathtaking jostle to re-create the other video’s sound. A drummer, whose ghostly outline has been digitally added, is a distractingly incongruous feature.
Momentary quiet between videos is penetrated by a melody that emanates from speakers hidden in the entrance. Once in the gallery’s basement vault, the disembodied sound develops new meaning. There the viewer discovers a temporary recording studio with instructions to accompany an unreleased track by Franz Ferdinand. Drums are provided. In place of traditional notation, phrases taken from Joyce’s Ulysses—after which the song is named—suggest sounds one might make; the mysterious melody from the gallery entrance is available here on headphones as a guide. The challenge to interpret unintelligible instructions mirrors the viewer’s search for a narrative interpretation of the exhibition. The proliferation of cymbals might also be a symbol for the circularity of any search for meaning. Sala’s poetic “second look” at his earlier works reminds viewers that an artwork’s meaning is as mutable as its context.
