David Claerbout: Light/Work-Worth Looking Into at SEANKELLY Gallery

David Claerbout (b. Belgium 1969) is an artist working in photography, videos, drawings & digital installations.  Best known for his large installations, I found his digital, virtual landscape most compelling.  The film is eerily vacant of human/animal forms or any sense of movement within the lush, green landscape.  Deceptively peaceful, there was an ominous, forbidding sense as you are drawn into the video & carried into the foreground.   The film travels from an expansive, sunlit landscape to shaded areas atop cliffs creating a feeling of vertigo.  The tall, black/white video installation of shots of a large brick structure and landscape is also intriguing sans the sense of foreboding.  This video installation would be companionable to the black/white Ellsworth Kelly photos on display in Chelsea at the Matthew Marks gallery.  This installation has a powerful pull with its architectural forms, strong shadowing & an absence of life or movement.  In sharp contrast, the enormous, colorful video work of a group of male workers in Africa huddled together after taking refuge from a storm under a bridge is vibrant & full of energy.  Their repose from moving & benign demeanor cause the subtle movement within the video to be surprising and arresting.  The drawings/photos of Elvis Presley were unremarkable.  I was fascinated with the diptych lightboxes of 2 birds perched on a sill.  One bird was inside the glass peering out & the perspective is shown in reverse; outside looking inside.  Take the time to view this interesting, innovative multi-media exhibit of David Claerbout's works.