The CJM Blog

T he screening series CLEAT (Cinematic Lo-fi Experiments in Art and Technology) is intended as both a cheeky riff on The CJM's NEAT:   New Experiments in Art and Technology exhibition and an expansion on some of its themes. Like NEAT , CLEAT features work by artists from three different eras, all bringing an active, creative approach to extant special effects technologies to bear on the stories they tell. Stills from The Bat Whispers. Screening on October 29 for CLEAT. Coming at us from 1930, Roland West's fantastic mystery The Bat Whispers (October 29) throws its handmade aspect right into our faces. Its very first shot pans down from a miniaturized clocktower to the busy street below, smash cutting from a tabletop set representing street-level to an actual street, populated with actors and moving vehicles. Even a 1930, post-Melies audience likely saw through the illusion, but it registers as a powerful statement of intent, and we can't help but sign on...

Installation view of the title wall for Night Begins the Day: Rethinking Space, Time, and Beauty. Photo by Gary Sexton Photography. In the eighteenth century, the concept of the sublime became very influential among painters and poets due to an increasing interest in the aesthetics of science. Expanding global exploration made people astutely aware of the enormous scale and splendor of the still-being-surveyed earthly wilderness, and the staggering immensity of the universe was being revealed by astronomy. The result was a combination of awe and fear—awe at the majesty and beauty of creation, linked with the fear of human frailty, mortality, and insignificance in the light of the vastness of the cosmos. Furthermore, this response itself became a point of interest: how do we existentially resolve our psychology and spirituality with this new information? There are corresponding considerations of these concerns in Judaism, for example in the concept of  yir’ah , or the fear o...

Installation view of In That Case: Havruta in Contemporary Art :  Lindsey White and Ron Lynch. Photo by Johnna Arnold. Creativity comes in pairs in The CJM’s exhibition series In That Case: Havruta in Contemporary Art . Following exhibitions with Lindsey White and Ron Lynch, and Helena Keefe and Jessica Prentice, Anthony Discenza and Peter Straub are the third duo to showcase their collaboration. Each duo had, and will have, different roles in the creative process; for instance, photographer Lindsey White took pictures of the subject—Ron Lynch—while Lynch employed his comedic skills, creating an audio ‘tour’ of the exhibition that was available to visitors. Researching for the exhibition series, I read Sarah Lewis’  NYT review on Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs.  I thought about the implications of a collaborative practice—not only on the pair’s creativity, but also on their indivi...