Structural, Uncontrolled, Hollywood, Political, Auteur, Cosmic, Happy, Sad, and Ordinary was the first in a series of (Not)Projection works. A 16mm film projector ran continuously without film, projecting only a rectangle of white light onto the gallery wall. The title is drawn from Robert Smithson’s 1971 essay “Art Through the Camera’s Eye,” where it appears as a list of competing categories of film. The illuminated area was painted to cancel the projected image as closely as possible, while the gallery lights remained on. A narrow luminous perimeter usually remained visible around the painted field, so the projection was there and not there at the same time. Visitors could interrupt the beam simply by standing or moving between projector and wall, revealing and concealing in one action.
At the time, increasingly obsolete 16mm projectors were becoming a more and more common way of exhibiting artists’ films in commercial galleries and institutions. Rather than presenting a film, the work presented the projector, pedestal, wall, and (negated) projected light as a sculpture.
Between 2009 and 2010, five iterations of the work were installed at Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles (2009); Laure Genillard, London (2009); MoMA PS1, New York (2010); Emerson Dorsch, Miami (2010); and Redling Fine Art at NADA Miami Beach (2010), where it accompanied a (Not)Architecture installation presented in conjunction with Greater New York.
