Nigerian e-mail scams, figure skating and a Neanderthal language all play a part in Catherine Sullivan’s traveling video work Triangle of Need, opening Thursday at Metro Pictures in New York City. The multi-channel installation, which is concurrently on view at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, continues her exploration of theatrical and performative conventions.
Sullivan’s ambitious project focuses on two main locations: Vizcaya, the sprawling Miami estate built in the 1910’s by agricultural industrialist James Deering, and a nondescript apartment building in an anonymous American city. Sullivan situates “vestigial narratives” at these locations, one involving a hominid species that is forced to reproduce by an industrialist; and a series of reconstructions from the Pathescope Films catalog, silent films screened by Deering at Vizcaya.
Triangle of Need is at Metro Pictures through March 15. More info here.