Issue 68
June -August 2002
Catherine Yass.
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/catherine_yass/
' Catherine Yass’ recent exhibition ‘Descent’ comprised one film and two light boxes. As the film - also titled Descent (all works 2002) - begins, to the left of the image we see the uncompleted framework of a building, to the centre and right, an illegible white expanse. Visual information enters at the top edge of the frame and disappears at its bottom. As the camera ascends, it reveals to the left a sequence of receding half-constructed spaces. One light twinkles through the opaque whiteness, which gradually disperses; only at the moment of its disappearance does it become apparent that the whiteness is fog. To the right, a grid of green windows makes us realize that the space into which we are looking is a gap between two skyscrapers, which we seem to be travelling perpendicular to. The structure to the left begins to look more complete, now walled with white metal planks. This is strange, for how could this building stand if those floors at its top end were heavier than those we saw earlier at its base? The answer quickly becomes apparent: at the top of the frame a horizon emerges - the street. Only now does it become obvious that the film has been projected backwards. But it’s bewildering, for how could the street be at the top of the frame and how would the workmen walking along it be moving forwards? No, the film is being shown in the same sequence as it was made: during filming the camera was on a platform being lowered by a crane. Yass then rotated every frame by 180 degrees. By the end you feel inverted; as if your head might crash into the ground.'
Mark Godfrey
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