Aïda Ruilova: Short and Not-So-Sweet
Aïda Ruilova You're Pretty 1999 Video still Courtesy the artist & Salon 94 New York
In New York artist Aïda Ruilova's 1999 video You're Pretty—one of the feature works in a survey exhibition of her work currently on view at the Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery—shots of a long-haired, bespectacled man repeatedly caressing a guitar amplifier while muttering "you're pretty" in a disturbingly infantile voice are intercut in rapid-fire succession with images and dissonant sounds of the man rubbing a vinyl LP against the cement floor and wall of an industrial basement. Lasting all of 36 seconds, the effect is jarring, even confrontational, with a lightning barrage of image and sound grounded in references ranging from 1970s B-movie horror films to avant-garde music video techniques. (In fact, Ruilova, who is also a musician, has directed a music video for the art-rock ensemble Deerhoof.)
Aïda Ruilova Come Here 2002 Video still Courtesy the artist & Salon 94 New York
Critics have pegged Ruilova’s frantic image repetition and discursive rhythmic style as a modern prototype for the random poetics of film montage. Indeed her installation, which uses multiple monitors and projections timed to “jump” from video to video, puts the narrative onus on the viewer, whose focus is constantly shifted, allowing for unexpected visual and audio connections to resolve. (107 Tunnel Mountain Dr, Banff AB)
Aïda Ruilova I Have to Stop 2002 Video still Courtesy the artist & Salon 94 New York
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