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letter from paris
by Jeff Rian
melanie cousell
at jennifer flay
Every hour on the hour from five to eight
in the evening the Jennifer Flay gallery
showed English artist Melanie Counsell's
110 Euston Road, London, NW1, a three-and-
a-half minute, 8 mm black-and-white movie
(transferred to 16mm), titled after the
location where it was shot. The film is
projected from the office through a hole in
the wall; it shows a view from the roof of
a 15-story building from which Counsell
uses the camera like an roving eye. The
image goes in and out of focus and has the
look of one of Gerhard Richter's blotchy
monochrome paintings of cities. As the
camera moves you enter a disorderly
perspective-the feeling of a lonely tourist
or a depressive considering distance down;
a character more interested in forgetting
than remembering. Counsell's film both
expands and compresses the perspective so
that you feel cast in the perceiver's
detachment. It's a beautiful, ephemeral,
and strangely tactile film that is just
long enough to concentrate and focus your
attention and intense enough to stay in
your mind thereafter.
JEFF RIAN is a writer living in Paris.
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