“Big Picture”

“Big Picture” brings together a dozen artists (most of whom belong to video art’s equivalent of Hollywood’s A-list) whose installations in one way or another probe the mindless escapism offered by the traditional summer blockbuster. Mark Lewis’s Forte!, 2010, offers a slow-moving aerial tour of the majestic Alps that culminates in a view of a castle courtyard; from above, the tourists swarming about its grounds resemble crazed ants. A more unsettling piece is Shirin Neshat’s The Shadow Under the Web, 1997, a four-sided installation featuring the artist donning a flowing burqa and running hurriedly through the streets of an unnamed city, as her heavy breathing oppresses us from above. Those craving further disturbance need only subject themselves to the infernal rumblings of Steve McQueen’s Western Deep, 2002, a somewhat abstract work that attempts to replicate the sensory experience faced by workers subjected to the grueling conditions of South African gold mines. But given the time of year, most viewers will likely go in for old-fashioned narrative; here, offerings by the likes of Rodney Graham and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster fit the bill, though the most successful effort is Corinna Schnitt’s Das schlafende Mädchen (The Sleeping Girl), 2001, whose subtle humor manages to unite the listless banality of suburbia with Vermeer’s titular painting, in a short that could have been made by Todd Solondz had he been born in Germany.