Jeremy Blake's Video Art Challenges Film's Linearity, Echoing Painting's Circular Structure

Jeremy Blake's exhibition "Autumn Almanac" at Feigen in Chelsea featured a standout video projection, "Reading Ossie Clark," from 2003, which runs as a nine-minute loop. This work incorporates overlapped imagery referencing 1960s and 1970s British fashion icon Ossie Clark, blending pop visuals and psychedelic colors. Narration by Clarissa Dalrymple, optional for viewers, draws from Clark's diary entries about his social circle and drug use. Blake, born in 1971, includes small paintings and large photo collages, but the video's non-linear format distinguishes it from film, aligning more with painting's circular content. The piece avoids literal meaning, instead evoking the era's texture, comparable to Ted Demme's 2001 film "Blow" in its immersive effect. Video art's shift from film began in the mid-1970s with tools like Dan Sandin's Image Processor from 1973 at the University of Illinois, enabling real-time editing. Today, affordable software allows artists similar capabilities, with Blake among those adopting painting's structural approach over film's linear narrative.