Elizabeth Price
»Choir (Parts I and II)«, 2011
HD Video, colour, sound, 9:05 Min.
Courtesy of Elizabeth Price and MOTInternational, London/Brussels

Elizabeth Price, »Choir (Parts I and II)«, 2011, Videostill, Courtesy of Elizabeth Price and MOTInternational, London/Brussels

Elizabeth Price, »Choir (Parts I and II)«, 2011, Videostill, Courtesy of Elizabeth Price and MOTInternational, London/Brussels

Elizabeth Price

May 12 – June 14, 2012

Invited by Andrew Bonacina (Curator, International Project Space, Birmingham)

»Choir (Parts I and II)« (2011)

In the knowingly didactic opening sequence of Elizabeth Price's (*1966, lives and works in London) »Choir« (Parts I and II), we are told the word »choir« evokes a number of definitions, being both an architectural space and the social body that inhabits it, as well as a term used in bookbinding to describe a collection of pages. In »Choir (Parts I and II)« this semantic exegesis unfolds via written text layered on top of archive images and diagrams of ecclesiastical architecture, accompanied by a crisp soundtrack of finger snaps and handclaps. The visual and textual narrative gradually spins off into a more deliriously polyphonic space, created from a rapid-fire montage of internet clips of musical performances, that build to a 'wall of sound'-like crescendo in which all of the videos constituent components collide.

As well expounding on its literal meanings, the word »choir« also takes on a metaphorical role for Price, highlighting the processes of assembly and accumulation that characterise the layering of collected materials and visual information in her work. Her videos typically shift between real spatial principles or architectural forms (the church, the book, the museum) and the constructed spaces of the digital realm. The manner in which she presents archival images often recalls Leo Steinberg’s description of the »flatbed picture plane« – a space on which information is built up and rearranged, much like the familiar desktop interfaces of the contemporary computer screen or digital editing software. While the exhibition version of »Choir« is rendered with the polish of High Definition video, Price’s videos nevertheless stay close to the willful instability of the materials she employs.   

Text: Andrew Bonacina