Lisa Ross at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery

This evening, I went to Daneyal Mahmood Gallery to hear Lisa Ross in conversation with Nan Goldin. It was an incredible artist talk. The gallery was crowded and many of us were sitting on the floor, perhaps appropriately ascetic. The YouTube video embedded here is from Daylight Multimedia and includes still pictures set to Uyghur music and Lisa Ross talking about prayer and spirituality. There are also some evocative pictures on the gallery website. When I looked at the list of her exhibitions, I realized that I had seen her work before, two years ago at Nelson Hancock Gallery in Dumbo.

The video at Daneyal Mahmood has a very different feel from the YouTube video from Daylight. The video on view at the gallery is very quiet. The gallery text indicated that you could only hear the natural sounds of the holy site in the desert. With quite a few people in the gallery, you couldn't even hear that and the silent flapping of the flags was mesmerizing.

Seeing the Uyghur scenery was especially evocative since I cataloged some ARTstor images from the Silk Routes recently. Lisa Ross first went to Xinjiang to see the ancient cities but found them disappointingly touristic. Wandering off, she discovered these holy sites.