About this artwork
Commissioned by Spike Island, Flash in the Metropolitan was filmed in the depths of darkness in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the three and a half minute film Nashashibi and Skaer focus on artefacts from the Near Eastern, African and Oceanic collections. Both artists in their own practices are interested in re-contextualising the viewer’s awareness and recognition and this film continues to engage with this theme. In flashing a blinding light on to a series of historical objects, Nashashibi and Skaer subvert the notion of contemplation that is so closely associated with a museum environment. The viewer is instead granted a fleeting glimpse of a series of artefacts, which, with any detail removed, reduces their status to an icon without a narrative.
Updated before 2020
-
artists:
-
title:Flash in the Metropolitan
-
date created:2006
-
materials:16mm film installation, silent, 3 min. 25 sec.
-
object type:
-
credit line:Purchased 2007
-
accession number:GMA 4845
-
gallery:
-
subject:
Lucy Skaer
Lucy Skaer
Lucy Skaer (born 1975, Cambridge) studied Fine Art in the Environmental Art department at Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 1997. She lives and works in Glasgow and London. Skaer’s work stems from an interest in found imagery which she uses as a basis for reinterpretation. She represented...