James Gustin, Michele Moore Gustin, and Ollie Danzler.
Featured Artists
Wedding Video:Projection, a collaboration of James Gustin and Michele Moore Gustin, was an installation of video projections, still photographs, and audio that the artists selected from their extensive archive of actual wedding footage to create a mediation on acts of love and ritual in the context of the American Family. The Gustins’ work displayed the encounter between the artists and their subject, in which an involving relationship is revealed over the course of a wedding ceremony. On days complicated by high emotion, family dynamic and cultural imperatives, the Gustins’ documented both ritual and the rejection of such ceremonies. In observing the idiosyncrasies that make each wedding and family unique, the Gustins’ showed respect not only for their family subjects but also for the undervalued business of wedding documentation. The artists acknowledged the degree to which they are themselves influenced by the wedding party gestalt. Far from a cool, distantly observed description, these images betrayed the artists’ preferences, prejudices, and hopes for these couples. This installation challenged the notion that all families are the same. Also on view was Ollie Danzler‘s photographs exploring the emotional and personal connections between people. Danzler studied at Columbia College, taught at HPAC, and was a recipient of a CAAP grant.
