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Atlas (2012)
Los Angeles-born artist Karthnik Pandian (b. 1981) presents Atlas, an installation of black boxes on rollers, part sculpture and part plinth, all gridded in white lines like graph paper -- a 3D “blank slate,” perhaps. The installation includes three videos, with the monitors sitting on top of the plinths, which were filmed in Ouarzazate in Morocco, a kind of North African Hollywood where Lawrence of Arabia and Gladiator were shot, among other epics. Echoing the photographs made by Gregory Crewdson in the overgrown backlots at Cinecitta a few years ago, Pandian’s vids contemplate the deteriorating structures and expanses of desert, suggesting that U.S. “culture” has indeed taken over the world. (Catalogue Art Basel's Statements) Atlas/ Inserts (2014) In 2014, the ICA in London invited Karthik and Andros to create a video work from the Art Basel exhibition for the Artists' Film Biennial. The result is Atlas/Inserts a 17-minute video. Atlas Revisited (2015) In the summer of 2015, Karthik and Andros will begin working on the third part of this collaboration. Atlas Revisited will be a performance about, and tangential to the project itself. Atlas Revisited will premiere in the end of 2015.
A reprise of Merce Cunningham and Charles Atlas' 1982 dance-film "Channels/Inserts" shot amidst the deserted sets of Atlas Film Studios in Ouarzazate, Morocco. Featuring virtuosic performances from an ensemble of five professional film camels outfitted in custom made Liberty print costumes embroidered with coins. Cunningham and Atlas' film can be viewed here: dropbox.com/s/l4dd36dyf0wndcw/CHANNELS_INSERTS_DVD.avi |