The Contemporary Art Modern Project is pleased to present Curious Clips, an online exclusive debut of a collage series by New-York based artist, speaker, and retired psychiatrist Steven Rudin.
Rudin’s broader body of work is a trove of wonder, intellectual play, and a dedication to materiality. Curious Clips is coolly, yet intentionally, nestled within it—an elegant and somewhat minimalistic, but no less expansive series. Rudin has long, successfully drawn upon his scholarly experiences and aesthetic sensibilities, which include delicate references to psychological philosophies such as Parts Theory and Freud’s concept of the Unconscious alongside nods to art movements such as Dadaism and German Expressionism.
However, rather than presenting vignettes with an oneiric aura—conjuring unsettling, even nightmarish feelings—Curious Clips evokes flickers of chic daydreams and anecdotes drawn from a collective, creative memory. The series’ title underscores this warm, albeit fleeting nature through a collection of twelve rich, black and white vignettes the artist describes as “stills from a movie that doesn’t exist,” if it was ever made.
The tableaux, and the manner in which they are presented, are reminiscent of the early twentieth century View-Master stereoscope toy, an anthology of sorts that strikes a balance between campy nostalgia and a surrealism to touch on the mechanism of memory-making. Images sourced from magazines, catalogs, and photography are selected and clipped with tailor’s scissors to achieve a dizzying precision. When they’re finally glued together and varnished, there’s no telling where one begins or ends.
Rudin’s compilation of contemporary and art historical images—vestiges of an exploration of the blurring between collective and personal experiences across time—are brought together through a distinct, queer visual lexicon, glamour and humor bursting through each scene. The dominance of black and white is purposely disrupted with interpolations of serene tones: blues, orange-yellows, and pinks in a selection of flowers, patterns, and, in some cases, disco balls. These elements reflect the artist’s practice as a metaphor for memory and identity-making, parallel, non-linear processes that buoy a person in the real world.
Curious Clips, whether one takes it as a physical manifestation of the uncanny chill déjà-vu brings to the spine, or a sign that the fantastical exists in waking life, stands out in its final presentation. The shadowboxes chosen by the artist function as a window for one to peer through—museum glass doesn’t allow for a reflection, although the potential to see ourselves is gifted to us nonetheless.
Statement and curation by Maria Gabriela Di Giammarco
