This was 15 years, 8 months, 27 days ago

"....A window made of frosted glass allows light to enter into the architectural space, without allowing the outside to look inside, or more importantly in this case, without allowing the inside to look outside: permeability without visibility. Wodiczko, not without a certain mischievousness, calls these windows "Chelsea-style" and thus links them specifically to the art institution. If the artist's projected video seeks to operate as institutional critique by creating a conduit for a vision that brings the image of the outside into the internal space of the gallery, then the formal obfuscation of the image operates as a critique of this vision, a critique of its own operation of institutional critique for its limited nature of operation from within the discourse of art, able to present individuals that challenge the exclusionary operations of art but only on the homogeneous white field generated by an element of the architectural container. In addition, if the piece is institutional critique in that it highlights the gallery's constructed and exclusionary nature, then the futility of actual change represented by Wodiczko's choice in using windows, and not some other architectural structure that contains a hope for movement and transgression (such as a door), enacts a critique of his own institutional critique, highlights the inability of his work of art to affect a physical change onto the living situation of those who are excluded and portrayed in these windows. Art within the gallery is unable to act, precisely due to its existence within the gallery, generating a critique of the outside/inside divisions but only on the gallery's terms and within the discursive space of the art institution."