I stopped by the Artists Space on Greene Street today at lunchtime (there is also an Artists Space on Walker Street, which I have not been to yet). It's up on the third floor of an average building with a nondescript entrance. The modest ante-gallery with a glowing Red Alert (three Apple monitors turned portrait, with orangey-red screens) leads into a huge space dimly lit with a deep blue light. In the center of the room is a rear projection screen that you first approach as a flipped image but when you move around it you see a skaters' quarter pipe set up with huge throw pillows so you can chill out and watched Liquidity, Inc. The most intriguing piece in the gallery is Guards, which is a video projection that includes former guards/cops who explain and show how they would enter and secure spaces with their handguns in preparation to confront an armed suspect. In the video they are plain clothed, and they point their hands as guns. The twist is that they perform their maneuvers in the brightly lit galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago. Pretty brilliant.
