Sarah Sze and Alex Prager

Sarah Sze’s installation, “Crescent,” deals with many themes of of nature and time. Alex Prager’s piece, “Play the Wind,” also flirts with the linearity of time but to a different effect. “Crescent” juxtaposes motion with stills by projecting videos onto photographs. The subject matter is mostly natural themes, such as birds, fire, and water, but the processes used in the work are dependent on technology. I read this is a play between artificial and natural, the uniquely human ability to control time, a dominion over nature. The piece, however, remains humble. It does not feel like it is flexing control but rather simply commenting on it, playing with it, and using it to portray an honest look at nature through the lens of the human experience. “Play the Wind” likewise deals with the control of time. When the woman begins to fall, she is overwhelmed with her descent, but she slowly begins to conquer it. The piece comments on the idea of the male gaze, as when the man looks at her it physically undressed her. However, when she learns to conquer her descent, she manages to redress herself, this time in a suit rather than a dress. Suits are generally viewed as powerful outfits, namely because they are masculine. Her descent ends with her gaining a sense of empowerment through the suit, only to realize she is on a stage being watched. This, to me, was a metaphor for her sense of empowerment being ephemeral and borrowed from the patriarchy. Both pieces used the manipulation and control of time to make their points, but they had very different visual and conceptual effects.