“There is another world, but it is in this one,” said Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In this exhibition, artists look to the future, imagining how we move forward from the tumultuous events of the past year. [read more]
Art in the Plague Year is an online exhibition organized by UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography and curated by Douglas McCulloh, Nikolay Maslov, and Rita Sobreiro Souther. UCR ARTS’s programs are supported by UCR College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the City of Riverside, Altura Credit Union, and Anheuser-Busch.
All works in this exhibition are reproduced with permission of the artists/copyright holders. Works (images, video, audio or other content) must not be used or reproduced for any purposes other than fair use without prior consent of the artists.
(b. 1961, Budapest, Hungary. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)
It’s the Zeitgeist Stupid
Short videos on loop, sound.
Karchi Perlmann’s micro-loop videos are small mirrors angled to reflect the turbulence of American society in 2020, the year of the plague. Perlmann lists some of the themes: “Ripping open the unhealed wounds of racism; the total moral collapse of fascist-leaning leadership; the evisceration of such leadership by a virus; the screaming response on social media of a perfectly divided nation.” The videos’ brief duration is designed for social media consumption, echoing soundbite, clickbait culture, “meant to be viewed in loop, over and over again,” chaotic, disruptive, open to interpretation. They are also cathartic; the artist reports he is driven by “an untamable urge” to confront the zeitgeist of the times. The loops radiate compulsion, anger, struggle, protest, and proposal. Above all, they telegraph compulsive faith in creative expression.