John Pilson

Annet Gelink Gallery is proud to present work by the American artist John Pilson (1968). In Pilson's photographs and video installations the focus is on the corporate world. Strange scenes enfold against the cube-shaped background of computers, office spaces, lifts and long corridors. The clinical atmosphere of the office building is rendered unrecognisable when random, spontaneous action breaks out that no one would expect to happen there.

In the gallery, three video installations and photographs will be shown that Pilson made in the World Trade Center in New York. In the multi-channel video installation Above the Grid (2000) you see two smartly-dressed men in suits walking through an office building. Pilson follows them through corridors, bathrooms and elevators as they suddenly break out into loud doo-wop singing. The corporate world seems to turn into a playground for adults. Ball-tossing, singing and leap-frogging - activities we don't expect in this environment - seem to be part of the order of the day. The scenes alternate with hazy images of the WTC building and architectural details. The video King Pleasure (2001) combines childlike playfulness with a sense of isolation and danger. A man in an office carefully puts balls into a wastepaper basket and walks down a hall with a woman in a wheelchair. After he withdraws with her into a small room and takes off his clothes, an unexpectedly effusive ritual follows. In the video installation Mr Pick-Up (2001), a lawyer tries to gather his things together before going to a meeting. As he picks up one folder, another falls to the floor. When he turns to pick up his books he loses all his papers. A choreography ensues of falling and getting up again. The constant stream of dropped papers begins as physical comedy but soon becomes like a never-ending corporate horror film.