François Bucher
White Balance (to think is to forget differences)
10 January - 2 March 2002
Artforum
February 2002
Gregory Williams
François Bucher
Like a surprising number of artworks that respond to the Wortd Trade Center
attacks, Francois Bucher's video project White Balance (to think is to forget
differences), 2001-2002, was conceived and partially produced before September
11. A fast-moving collage of sight and sound, it focuses broadly on the topic
of power and privilege by forcing the collision of disparate forms of public
discourse. Snippets of political speech, Hollywood promotional hype, street
interviews, radio commentary, and various other sound fragments are sampled
and loosely stitched together with both found visual material and new footage.
Bucher, an artist-in-residence at Location One (which is situated at a relatively
short remove from Ground Zero), took to the streets and recorded people doing
what they often seem to do in moments of crisis: haggling over prices for memorabitia
while simultaneously searching for a way to understand and come to terms with
the tragedy. White Balance may not offer any answers, but it does evoke a number
of ways of thinking about the fraught search for meaning that has unfolded in
the United States in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
-Gregory Williams