Anri Sala Solo Exhibition

Anri Sala’s solo exhibition runs from March 15 to April 19 at Chantal Crousel Gallery. Born in Albania in 1975, Anri Sala is currently one of the most internationally recognized video artists from Eastern Europe. He is known for his mesmerizing interplay between dream and reality, exploring the time, space, events, and existential experiences within the unique intervals of audio-visual media. The artist states: “The place I understand is where people can experience memory—a place is not just a composition of space, but also of time. Both must exist simultaneously; it has inherent qualities involving architecture, sound, and events.”

In this new presentation, Sala organizes the gallery space into three musical rhythm pieces and one silence, playing on a six-minute cycle (three videos rotating with spatial movement, accompanied by a silent kinetic sculpture whose light moves with the rhythm). This emphasizes the necessary “temporality” through past emotional experiences. Building on this, the artist aims to stimulate and expand an emotional quality of improvisation, confirming its subtlety and possibilities, concentrating all these signs to predict future experiences.

The rhythmic march begins with “Air Cushioned Ride” (2006), a documentary short filmed by Sala while living in the US at a highway rest stop parking lot in Arizona. Images of luxury trucks circling are paired with elegant Baroque music heard inside the vehicles. Under this resting atmosphere, the contradiction of images and sounds from different eras meets, unexpectedly interrupted by modern music. This cross-correspondence creates a temporal-spatial distance, an influence called cross-modulation or “Spurious” transmission.

When “Air Cushioned Ride” ends, the middle piece “A Spurious Emission” (2007) begins. Clearly favoring extraordinary accidents, this unpredictable effect is a sign of the work, evidently influenced by John Cage. The film presents two groups: a classical Baroque trio (harpsichord, viola da gamba, violin) on the left, and a modern band (electric guitar, bass, cello, percussion) on the right, including a virtual percussionist (far right). First, the chamber ensemble plays lyrical Baroque music, suddenly interrupted by modern pop. This intermittent cross-play conducts two concerts of different styles simultaneously, as if two eras cross each other in time. Listening closely, one finds the voice-over identical to “Air Cushioned Ride,” suggesting an expansion of spatial composition. In “A Spurious Emission,” however, it is the expansion of temporal rhythm, making time the master of the film.

After the double concert, “After Three Minutes” (2007), a dual video projection, plays simultaneously. This work updates “Three Minutes” (2004), featuring two unusual (dialogue-form) shiny cymbals on the wall. Rapid images show different light and shadow changes on the cymbals, captured by a special high-speed camera at two frames per second. Under strong light and reflection, almost black-and-white, the powerful cymbals and changing lights poetically present time, speed, rhythm, and superior aesthetics, reminding me of Nam June Paik’s many works.

Following the quiet temporal rhythm, the room for “Title Suspended” (2008) lights up. It is an electric carving kinetic sculpture: a pair of blue gloves rotates subtly, taking two minutes per turn. During this, fingers inflate alternately and point at each other. In this dialogue form, their subtle relationship describes an extraordinary reality, a metaphor for human body language in space and time. Finally, before a music stand sits the score for Jemeel Moondoc’s Long Sorrow film theme (2006, previously screened here). A phonograph by the wall allows visitors to listen quietly with headphones to this lyrical music, ending this audio-visual baptism in the lightest mood.