On Stellar Rays is pleased to present two new videos by NY-based artist Alix Pearlstein, Talent and Finale. Together the works explore the perimeters of the performance score, related shifts in subjective and objective perception, and the subtle difference between being, acting and performing.

Both videos share the same set, a dance studio which doubles as a performance venue, and the same cast, comprised of 10 professional actors. Talent consists of a sharply structured and edited sequence of acts, actions and interactions among the actors, alternately suggesting a contest, audition, rehearsal, performance and shoot. The camera bisects the studio as it tracks laterally, back and forth along a white line on the floor, creating a physical and psychic division between cast and crew. Further complicating the composition is a mirrored wall behind the actors, reflecting and exposing the activity of the camera, crew and artist / director, while implicating them in the scene. This construct recalls aspects of two widely divergent, iconic works that premiered concurrently in 1975: Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line and Dan Graham’s Performance / Audience / Mirror.

Finale takes a decidedly more introspective mood. Shot at dusk, the studio windows reveal the sun setting behind the Manhattan skyline. A centrally positioned camera rotates continuously counter clockwise in the space. For the duration of a single long take, cast and crew refer and respond to actions from Talent. They circulate freely throughout the space, alternately stepping in and out of their roles, as the structured acts of the preceding hours unravel.

Running times for Talent and Finale are 10:30 and 10:20 minutes, both works are from 2009.

Alix Pearlstein’s work in video and performance has been widely exhibited internationally. Selected solo exhibitions include the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; The Kitchen, NYC; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA; Lugar Commum, Lisbon; Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, NYC; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston and Postmasters Gallery, NYC. Her works have been included in exhibitions at Internationale D’Art De Quebec; The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Annual Exhibition of Visual Art, Ireland; BAM / PFA, Berkeley; SMAK, Ghent; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; ICA Philadelphia; Biennale de Lyon, France; and The Museum of Modern Art, NYC. Pearlstein lives in New York.