Whatever This Is It Won’t Last Long continues at 236 East Pender until August 17. This exhibition takes place in a temporary shop holding its “Pre-Apocalypse Blow-Out” sale.
Brad Allen’s video World is definitely in tune with the theme of the sale. In this wry depiction of the apocalypse, the World is nothing more than an inflated plastic facsimile in a parallel white universe. Going against the common cinematic representation of a simulated and destructive end, Allen’s single-channel video administers the end of the World not as some cataclysmic event, but as anti-climatic emission of air as it lazily spills from the shiny cartoon surface. Its understated nature mirrors a growing disbelief and nonchalance in the face of promised but unfulfilled dangers.
Unlike previous videos, we won’t be showing this one in the window at night — you’ll have to come in during open hours (noon to 5pm, Wednesday through Saturday) and watch it on the small monitor high in the back corner of the installation. Or, you can see it here:
