Guest
Why does harvest gold connote “sad old appliance” but rose gold say “sexy new iPhone”? That’s one question posed in the centerpiece of Sara Cwynar’s captivating new show at Foxy Production, a seven-minute film collage, with voice-over, whose subjects include, but aren’t limited to: consumerism, obsolescence, sexism, melamine dinnerware, brightly plumed parrots, and, for reasons that I’ve yet to grok, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The tone of Cwynar’s movie mimics mid-twentieth-century educational films—if they had been peppered with quotes from Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty—but none of the footage is found. Cwynar shot it herself, on 16-mm. stock, not digital video—a crucial detail, given that one of her central subjects is film itself. (The exceptions to the rule are the scenes in which Cwynar appears onscreen, a pretty blond woman identifiable by her telltale earrings, a tiny gold “S” and “C,” which were shot by somebody else.)
