Tim White's first foray into the realm of video art is an unmitigated success. White tackles weighty subject matter with a surprising economy of means. Eschewing the props and theatrical effects favored by many video artists (Viola, Oursler and Sarkisian, among them), White straightforwardly projects his gripping imagery onto neutral walls. The theme of the work is the art of war, that timeless subject which never ceases to fascinate and disgust.

Abandonment of El Alamein--The Runner (1999) was inspired by a few seconds of film footage of a running soldier at the famous WWII battle of El Alamein that White discovered while conducting research at the New York Public Library. This form of ground battle already seems so antiquated that I mistook it for a scene from the First World War, and was thinking of Verdun instead of North Africa. The original footage appears to show an infantryman stepping on a land mine and getting blown up. However, White manipulated the frames so deftly by means of a computer that the explosion is easy to miss, as it lies sandwiched between the opening and closing strides.

The helmeted soldier, hardly more than a silhouette buried in deep blue haze, remains anonymous. It is both unclearand of little import which side he is on. Instead, his anguish and effort are emphasized, through the sounds of heavy panting and distant rumbling that accompany the video. (White created the soundtrack by recording his own breathing as he ran through Central Park.)

A second wall projection, Presence (1999), explores the potential beauty of war's annihilating force. It consists of manipulated footage of an air battle shot from the ground, offering views of light streaking across the sky, explosions and clouds. In this work, White evokes the suggestive powers of painterly abstraction, while working once again with a predominant palette of blue, tinged with black and whites.

Blue is the color of sorrow, of cold steel and of light emitted by a television set. These days, the latter is what brings warfare, abstracted and estheticized, into our very homes. With the dim image of the endlessly running and dying soldier, and the ambiguous view of sky scarred by violence, White shows us war as a phenomenon both removed and ever present.

Tim White: View of the video projection
Abandonment of El Alamein--The Runner,
1999; at Alexandre de Folin.