I had only ever seen clips of “Stealing Beauty,” a short by Israeli video artist Guy Ben-Ner that was exhibited at Postmasters Gallery two years ago. But now my internet wanderings have unearthed all eighteen minutes! The film is all at once a family drama (starring the artist’s actual family), a slapstick comedy, and a meditation on the idea of private property. This would be interesting in itself, but the kicker is that the entire short was filmed in the living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms staged in IKEA stores around the globe. Pricetags dangle from everything, shoppers wander through the frame, loudspeaker announcements interrupt the dialog. No matter what your take happens to be on the subject matter, the film is a delight to watch.
“Words,” presented by Radiolab and NPR, is a slightly more difficult video to describe! It’s a collage of visual representations of the various meanings of commonly used words (with the occasional homonym thrown in). The video moves almost seamlessly from definition to definition and word to word; ‘play,’ for instance, is illustrated by children playing, an umpire yelling “play ball!”, and a man playing a trumpet, and that final image serves as a transition into the word ‘blow,’ which then includes blown-out birthday candles, a blown fuse, and a boxer taking a blow to the head. It’s poignant and thought-provoking, a reminder that those worn-out words are linked to our rich and varied world. It makes them new.
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