Microscope is extremely pleased to present a screening of video works by Cate Giordano, culminating with the premiere of her 33-minute single-channel video “After the fire is gone”, the scenes and outtakes of which form part of a broader installation currently on view in her solo exhibition of the same title at the gallery.
The five works in the program – spanning nearly a decade from “Hunter in the Woods” made when the artist was an undergrad student to a second new work “Prelude” – typically find Giordano in wigs and mustaches assuming the role of the main characters and singing soundtracks in music video-like sequences. Coarsely made sculptures of everyday objects, furniture, animals and people including non-speaking and still incarnations of the main characters are integrated into story lines that often play with and subvert the portrayals of familial, romantic, and sexual relationships that we see in the movies and on TV.
“I mix ridiculous costuming and melodramatic plot lines with banal gestures and everyday actions. I tend to gravitate toward themes that relate to a grotesque Americana, and sometimes I feel like I’m regurgitating what I’ve seen my whole life on TV, but making it my own, role-playing, becoming the archetypes that I’ve been so affected by both in real-life and in media.” – Cate Giordano
The screening is taking place in connection with the artist’s current solo exhibition at the gallery “After the fire is gone” on view through October 22. Giordano will be in attendance and available for Q&A following the screening.
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Cate Giordano works primarily in moving image, often playing multiple roles in her videos, and sculpture in the form of sets or characters made in a way that highlights their otherness and materiality. Her work has previously exhibited at Spring/Break Art Show, New York; James Farley Post Office, New York; Old School in collaboration with the New Museum, New York; and Parlour Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY among others. Solo screenings have been presented at Film Society at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA and Spectacle Theater, Brooklyn, NY. Group screenings include Flaherty Seminar at Anthology Film Archives, New York and Millennium Film Workshop, Brooklyn, NY among others. Her work has been discussed in Artforum, Artnet, ARTnews, ArtObserved, Hyperallergic, San Francisco Art Quarterly, and others. She received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 2008 and was a Smack Mellon’s Artist Studio Program recipient in 2016-17. Originally from Pensacola, FL, Cate Giordano lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
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With the underwriting support of the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation