Watch Josiah McElheny, filmmaker Jeff Preiss, and publisher Christine Burgin in conversation on June 9, 2021, as they delve into Portrait of a Library, the four-channel film installation created through a multi-year long collaboration between McElheny and Preiss. The work layers an amalgamation of different types of moving imagery shot within Burgin's personal library—16mm footage, VHS footage, re-shot 16mm footage of the VHS imagery on a monitor and of 35mm slides projected on a screen—to create a hypnotic cinematic environment of a world that seems to exist in no time or place, but is also real.
Portrait of a Library is on view as part of Josiah McElheny’s solo exhibition Libraries, at 291 Grand St through Saturday, June 12, 2021.