Michelle Stuart's 'Silent Movies' at Leslie Tonkonow features photographic grids on memory and cosmic journeys.

From November 1, 2014, to January 10, 2015, Michelle Stuart's exhibition 'Silent Movies' was showcased at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, located at 535 West 22nd Street in New York City. Renowned for her land art and sculptural scrolls, Stuart exhibits her photographic skill through grid-like compositions that blend personal imagery with found objects. The exhibition includes multi-panel works such as Rue Cart, which presents twenty-eight panels reminiscent of a Surrealist film storyboard, featuring constellations and memories from post-war Paris. Navigating the Stars II, with fifteen panels, reflects Captain Cook's 18th-century Alaskan expedition, framing vintage ships against starry backdrops. A Foreign Territory Within offers nine abstract panels that evoke bruised landscapes, while Vaucluse recalls Stuart's frottaged scrolls from the 1970s. Sacred Solstice Alignments features monochrome depictions of Machu Picchu peaks, aligning them with celestial patterns akin to her 1979 Stone Alignments/Solstice Cairns. The exhibition conceptually ties in historical figures like Claudius Ptolemy and Leon Battista Alberti, linking cartography and perspective to Stuart's exploration of memory's fourth dimension. Described as smudged, erased, and layered, the works unfold on architectural frames, representing various film genres intertwined with Stuart's personal narrative as a metaphor for the human journey.