The Spectre and The Sphere
C Magazine, Winter 2008, no. 100
This article is a review of Dublin based artist Jesse Jones's video installation at University of Toronto's Blackwood Gallery in Mississauga called The Spectre and The Sphere (2008). Filmed in the empty halls and theatre of the Vooruit ("Forward") arts centre in Ghent, Belgium, this 12-minute 16mm film opens with the strains of the Communist Internationale, socialism's theme song and the first anthem of the Soviet Union, perforned by Lydia Kavina on the Theremin... As we are guided through the empty halls, bathrooms and staircases, the camera zooms in on various architectural details: a chandelier, curtains, tiled floors, gilded molding and the inscription of Kunst Veredelt ("Art Ennobles"). An overlaid vocal track recites lines from Marx's Communist Manifesto, a so-called Whisper Choir that echoes throughout the empty Vooruit in a spectral manifestion of the building's past.
ITEM 2008.153 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
The Spectre and the Sphere(2008) – Jesse Jones