April 4th-May 4th, 2002

Curated by Tanya Leighton

Opening Reception: April 4th, 6-8pm

Stills from “Under the Rain”, videotape, 1997

It is a great pleasure to present the first solo exhibition of work by the internationally celebrated filmmaker Alfred Guzzetti. Guzzetti has directed and collaborated on many documentary and experimental films and videotapes. His body of work includes personal, political documentaries and, most recently, digital video works that had their predecessors in his experimental films from the 1960s and 1970s.

The installation at Location One includes two experimental videotapes, “Under the Rain” (1997; 10 minutes) and “A Tropical Story” (1998; 9 minutes). These videos make use of documentary-like footage yet they are not configured like documentaries. Guzzetti’s deep subjectivity and consciousness is transparent in his exquisitely composed, carefully crafted, and concise images. Descriptions of landscapes, public and private spaces, advertising and television images rhythmically lull us into a gentle contemplation; then interrupt us by assaultive sounds, quick edits and scrolling texts. These pieces articulate a recurring theme in Guzzetti’s work: the complex anxiety of being in a foreign place and the projection of our consciousness onto changing landscapes. “The moon is the same, although the surroundings are not.” His work asserts the struggle to assimilate what we know, or think we know, and what we have repeatedly heard, yet have consistently forgotten.

Alfred Guzzetti is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Arts at Harvard University. His films and tapes have been included in numerous national and international film festivals. He is the author of the book “Two or Three Things I Know about Her: Analysis of a Film by Godard” (Harvard University Press, 1981).

“The Tower of Industrial Life,” an experimental videotape from the same series, is currently on exhibition as part of the Whitney Biennial 2002.