On the first anniversary of Momenta Art’s video library, the gallery is pleased to present screenings of selected new works that have been added to the archive. Momenta Art’s video library is dedicated to preserving and making available the works of artists who have previously presented video with Momenta. The works of over 50 artists are available for viewing in our dedicated viewing room, any day that Momenta is open for business.

At the opening, the work of eight artists will be shown. Thereafter those works will be screened according to the following schedule:

Screening schedule : Saturday, Jan. 12th, 12-6PM, Claudia Joskowicz, drawn and quartered. Taking her cue from popular media, Claudia Joskowicz filmed a “re-enactment” of a murder. But in this case, the subject is the martyrdom of Tupac Katari, the 18th century Incan rebel. Slowed down, with beautiful, external detail, the stylized footage highlights how such re-presentations inform our knowledge; the fact that Katari is drawn and quartered by motorcycles instead of horses crystallizes that dynamic.

Sunday, Jan. 13th, 12-6PM, David Burns, Chicken Anonymous. In Dave Burns’s video, a couple that keeps a small coop of chickens considers the interpersonal relations of their chickens and discuss which chicken must die – both for the couple’s own food and to avoid overpopulation of the henhouse. The video presents footage in reverse of the loser chicken getting beheaded and plucked.

Monday, Jan. 14th, 12-6PM, Daniel Herskowitz, Notes on a Primatology Conference. In a video by Daniel Herskowitz, the artist eavesdrops upon conversations among primatologists at an academic conference. As they discuss group behaviors of lower primates, the group dynamics of the scientists seems to parallel that of their subjects.

Thursday, Jan. 17th, 12-6PM, Traci Tullius, Simmer Down (Part 2). Traci Tullius’s video offers footage of the artist pacing as she constructs the boundaries for a new performance. In the performance, the artist will slow down all her actions during the day, allowing for hyper-awareness of her physicality and motivations. The pacing artist highlights not only the impossibility of documenting such a performance but also the obsessive drive that would make it necessary.

Friday, Jan. 18th, 12-6PM, James Yamada, The Results of Energy neither Being Created nor Destroyed on a Sunny Day. Elegant and absurd, James Yamada’s video presents a man sitting in a wheelchair in a winter landscape. A murder of crows observes him from nearby trees. The man pulls out large, steel rings and begins to perform magic tricks for his avian audience. The tension that develops between eccentricity and staged poetry allows a deeper experience of this work.

Saturday, Jan. 19th, 12-6PM, Vincent Meesen, N 12°13.062’/ W 001°32.619’ Extended. Belgian artist Vincent Meesen’s vibrant but alienating video follows two African men in a dust-blown, ruin-like structure, prompting questions regarding the men’s relationship to the architecture of this place, to their connection with a history that exists through erasure In contrast, cranes on the horizon suggest future structures that may be constructed from these recycled materials. A storm interrupts the transfer and the two workers resign their activities to the power of nature.

Sunday, Jan. 20th, 12-6PM, Jaishri Abichandani, Happily Never After. Jaishri Abichandani offers raw, nighttime footage of a female fortune-telling robot often? seen in street fairs in India. The narrative offers viewers ambiguous? choices that are based on legends of women saints. The? futuristic robot slips from being the subject of the work to addressing and? subjugating viewers with archaic religious edicts of an unidentifiable society, breaking down boundaries between viewer and artwork.

Monday, Jan. 21st, 12-6PM, Diane Cheklich, Late. Diane Cheklich’s film sets found audio of an evangelical radio call-in show against lonely neon “vacancy” and lotto signs in dark, late-night, inner-city America. The female minister speaks in tongues and dispenses both spiritual and personal advice as the camera lingers on signs such as “If you’re in pain, come right in.”