Of the four concurrent exhibitions of Ellen Cantor’s work that were on view in New York City this fall, I spent the most time with her 1999 multi-channel video projection “Be My Baby,” which was displayed at the Chinatown gallery Foxy Production in a somewhat odd arrangement, which proved to be a surprisingly useful setup for understanding the artist’s work. The video-montage of old Hollywood movies, space-exploration footage, independent cinema clips, and Leni Riefenstahl films was projected on three screens against a long wall in a narrow space. Flanking the three projectors, on either side, were benches at each end of the room, placed directly next to one of a pair of stereo speakers. To sit through its duration forced one to view the work from either far end of the production, close up to one version of the sound emitting from the speakers, and far away from the other audio and visuals. It may have been an accident of limited space, but the viewing scenario turned out to be constructive. After watching the piece a first time I moved to the other end of the room, aware that my understanding of the work couldn’t really be complete having seen it from only one angle; my physical perspective distorting how I read or consumed what was in front of me.Cantor, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 55 from lung cancer, was based during her lifetime in New York and London, but has been far better known to European audiences. The series of exhibitions that have been on view at Maccarone, Participant Inc., Foxy Production, and at 80WSE Gallery, as well as the public talks in the series "Mine are 'true' love stories…” hosted by Skowhegan’s New York City project space on 22nd Street, have marked a small step in correcting the disparity. It’s an appreciated one for the audience who already knew and loved her work, and welcome introduction for those, like me, who were largely unfamiliar with Cantor prior to this. The programming also included the premiere of her feature-length work “Pinochet Porn,” 2008–16, at the Museum of Modern Art of, which was in post-production at the time of her death and completed in the years following by an editing team she had appointed to the task.The way Cantor collaged film was tight and concise. Her cinematic snippets don’t follow a narrative line, rather, she intended that a story of sorts would coalesce through repeated motifs. “I montage with documentary, Hollywood, art house, and independent cinema ... I edit with reverence, because I have been greatly impacted by the films,” she explained in an interview conducted in conjunction with the 2008 Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit exhibition “Considering Detroit.” “Like Gyson and Bourroughs cut-ups, through editing, I am trying to reflect deeper into unconscious meanings,” she continued.In the 12-some-minutes of “Be My Baby” viewers witness an astronaut describing the experience of weightlessness with the analogy that it puts your stomach in your throat just like hitting a bump in the road at 60 miles per hour; kids are seen tumbling down a hill, laughing; chunks of the 1954 film “Johnny Guitar”recur throughout. Out of context, it’s just a scene of a man hitting a woman, asking her to tell him she still loves him. My first experience was of the echoing laughter of the children seeming to ring cruelly while female film stars were shaken and tossed to the ground. The lyrics to “Stand By Me” were twisted similarly, not sounding like a song of unity, rather ringing with the indignity of gender-based double standards. But the shots of earth from afar and spoken audio musing on the miracle of the infinity of space and time changed some aspects during the second and third viewings I stayed for—the song; the children; a female diver plunging into an abyss. The pain is still there, but seesawing with something like second-hand wonder; not mitigating it, but alternating with something like joy.Now drawing to a close, there’s still time to catch the exhibition hosted by NYU’s Steinhardt School gallery, 80WSE, titled “Are you ready for love,” which is on view through November 12. Or attend Skowhegan’s final lecture on the making of “Pinnochet Porn,” which takes place on November 11. Though hopefully, after the effort of these exhibition spaces and the attention the programming has ignited, sightings of Cantor’s work will be less hard to come by.
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