“Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space”

Renowned filmmaker and video artist Chantal Akerman gets her first solo exhibition in a U.S. museum with “Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space.” The multi-media installations making up the exhibit are D’Est (From the East), Sud (South), De l’autre côté (From the Other Side), Là-Bas (Down There) and an unnamed fifth installation, a new work created especially for the show that was filmed in Siberia. Mixing documentary filmmaking and video, the installations are marked by slow-moving action and extreme attention to detail, and they’re about movement (physical and emotional) and transition.

For example, in De l’autre côté, Akerman looks at undocumented Mexican immigrants crossing from Sonora, Mexico, into Arizona, often trekking for days through the wilderness. She uses long camera angles to accentuate the miles and miles of fence along the Mexico-Arizona border and the solitude of the journey.

Akerman looks at a different journey in D’Est (From the East), which features multiple video monitors in one room that move the viewer from summer in East Germany to winter in Russia, crossing through Poland and other Baltic states. The transition is one of not only location but of politics, as her camera captures Eastern Europe’s move from its Cold War days to the fall of communism. (Several of Akerman’s films will be screened next month at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Watch these pages for more details.) 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Through March 29. Blaffer Gallery, 120 Fine Arts Building, University of Houston. For information, call 713–743–9530 or visit www.hfac.uh.edu. Free.
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Starts: Jan. 18. Continues through March 29, 2008