Review

Trisha Baga: Rock

4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
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Time Out says

Trisha Baga's elastic assemblies of gauzy video projections and floor-based tumbles of scattered objects feel both old and new. Her crash-pad aesthetic has the whiff of the '60s about it, but is increasingly popular among young artists (Baga, who's from Florida, is in her mid-20s). Similarly ancient and modern is this show, entitled 'Rock' and referencing Plymouth Rock, the landing site of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts.

The tone is one of aftermath, of a great ideal on the slide: Baga's camera records the beach at sunset, then splinters into randomness – penguins at the zoo, dancers, bursts of Middle Eastern script, passages of abstract geometry, the phrase 'Boy I'm gonna put my body in your body'. This comes projected over three slouchy abstract paintings, while on the floor are a spray-painted boombox, a tipped-over plinth and tangles of cables. Don't try to make sense of it; rather, give yourself up to an evocation of fraying and dissolution.

The rear installation is similar, but technologically gussied-up: one dons 3D glasses to watch an animated cardboard box rotating above a desert landscape. Another assemblage, involving a Justin Bieber book, a cardboard box and a broken Greek statue, clarifies that Baga's approach owes some royalties to fellow American Rachel Harrison, who walks a comparable line between sense and senselessness, elevated and trashy that's supposed to speak of America now. Baga, on this evidence, is a less sophisticated lamenter, but her evolution is worth keeping an eye on.

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