JORDAN WOLFSON
04.29.04-06.06.04 Brändström & Stene, Stockholm
At Brändström & Stene, the young American artist Jordan Wolfson presents a looped four-minute video that takes viewers on a digital roller-coaster ride. Projected on a screen big enough to make the viewer feel almost physically present within the work, Infinite Melancholy, 2003, is a continuous panning shot in which the camera seems to fly over a flat white surface. The words CHRISTOPHER REEVE—sometimes legible, sometimes dissolving into a blur as the camera appears to slow down and speed up—are printed over and over in endless rows on this otherwise featureless plane. It's as if you were flying up the side of an infinitely tall skyscraper in the arms of Superman while at the same time confronting the fate of the actor who played him. A down-tempo piano sound track undercuts the sense of exhilarating motion and heightens the feeling that there's a comment on American hubris in here somewhere. But Wolfson's light, almost off-the-cuff approach prevents things from tying themselves too neatly into a conceptual knot.