Simon Starling: A Talk

Virtual Screening from June 8-15, 2020

The UO Center for Art Research is pleased to present a virtual screening of Simon Starling, “A Talk”, 2017, duration 49:17.

Simon Starling’s “A Talk”, originally shown in 2017 at the  Shoe Factory  in Norwich, UK, takes as its starting point an image of the Scottish actor Stephen Clyde standing at an improvised lecture podium while playing the role of the artist at the Glasgow debut of  “At Twilight”,  Starling’s 2016  play made with  Graham Eatough  for two actors, three musicians, one dancer, eight masks (and a donkey costume).

Sent through digital space from one isolated machine in Copenhagen to another in Eugene, OR for a limited duration screening on a virtual platform, “A Talk” has a certain odd resonance right now as individuals shelter in place and institutions endeavor to give access to content and ideas that aren’t compromised by this forced remove. Being a conglomerated dramatization of a number of talks given at different institutions over time and narrated by a surrogate for the artist, “A Talk” is at once a time capsule, infinity mirror, and meta projection, or something that conflates time and space in a way that seems to cast from and  reflect  the  bizarre,  goopy medium the world seems to be slogging through.

CFAR is deeply grateful to Simon for the opportunity to culminate this year’s programming with “A Talk”, and we invite you all to attend a talk in real time by the artist on October 22, 2020 as part of the Department of Art’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series.