With the advance of digital technologies and the steady disappearance of photochemical formats over the last 10 years, 16mm and 35mm films are becoming a thing of the past. Yet, while the motion picture film industry has transitioned almost completely to the digital world, there are a growing number of artists who choose to work with light-sensitive film for its distinctive grain, texture, and luminosity—as well as its potent potential for metaphor. A love letter to celluloid, The Dying of the Light: Film as Medium and Metaphor features the work of six artists—Rosa Barba, Matthew Buckingham, Tacita Dean, Rodney Graham, Lisa Oppenheim, and Simon Starling—who engage film’s rich material and poetic qualities. In a mix of atmospheric, sculptural, and documentary works, the exhibition includes a selection of rather pared-down, but powerful images—fire, smoke, the setting sun, a spinning chandelier, a racetrack, figures in motion, and the transit of Venus—all nods to the most essential elements of film itself— light, movement, and time. References to death, disappearances, and endings of other kinds take on added meaning in the face of the threats to the future of analog film.
Simon Starling, Black Drop/Transit Footage (Internal Contact), 2012. 1 frame per second, Mauna Kea, Hawaii, 5th June 2012, 35mm film. 50.8 x 60.8 inches. Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo: Jean Vong