Cool Hunting

Iconic artist and theater director Robert Wilson has created a series of video portraits of celebrities, ordinary people and animals called "VOOM Portraits." Known for his glacier-paced theatrical productions with Tom Waits and Lou Reed, Wilson's now bringing his aesthetic to a video format. The recent developments in HD technology have allowed Wilson to create something like a precise hybrid of still photography and motion pictures. Actors such as Brad Pitt (as a crazy person on the streets in the rain), Isabelle Huppert (as Greta Garbo), Steve Buscemi (as a mad butcher chewing gum on a variety show), Robert Downey Jr. (as a dreaming corpse in a Rembrandt painting), and Winona Ryder (as Winnie, the main female character in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, buried up to her neck in sand) were asked to “think of nothing" and move slowly and steadily to collaborate in Wilson's vision of who they might be.

“VOOM Portraits” opens at Paula Cooper this Saturday, 13 January 2007 and runs through 4 February 2007. The show consists of the large scale projection of the portrait of Winona Ryder and a dozen snow owls in front of a polka dotted background. A much larger show of 36 portraits opens at Phillips de Pury & Co. on 17 January 2007 and runs through 14 February 2007. The shows are produced by VOOM HD Networks and will travel to LA, Moscow and the Far East and, later in 2007, can be seen on the VOOM HD Networks suite of channels.

VOOM Portraits
Opening Reception: 13 January 2007, 6-8pm
13 January-4 February 2007
Paula Cooper Gallery
534 W 21st Street
New York, NY 10011 map
tel. 01 212 255 1105

VOOM Portraits
Opening Reception: 16 January 2007, 6-8pm
17 January-14 February 2007
Phillips de Pury & Co.
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011 map
tel. 01 212 940 1200