Joseph Farbrook
Joseph Farbrook is an installation, digital ,and video artist who has exhibited extensively across the United States. Recent exhibitions include a solo feature at the University of Texas Arlington and group shows at PH21 Gallery in Barcelona, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, dual shows at Holy Art Gallery in London and Athens, Strata Gallery in Santa Fe, and Loosenart Gallery Millepiani Exhibition Space in Rome. Joseph has received several grants from the University of Arizona and University of Colorado as well as completed a residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. He has been published by the Boston Globe, Berkshire Fine Arts, The New Mexican, and LoosenArt.
For the purpose of the article we will be focusing on Joseph’s video art. Although an eclectic artist, one could argue Joseph’s most visually and narratively impacting works are his video installations, short films, and video sculptures. In the filmwork, there tends to be apocalyptic imagery and audio in the forms of desolate, barren landscapes with ambiguous figures scanning the emptiness of the horizon with the occasional blinding light reminiscent of an atomic blast. A recurring theme in the videos would be our collective psyche, perceptions, and the penetration, as well as infiltration, of environments.
Whether broadcasted against the four walls of a gallery, presented on digital platforms such as Youtube, or inserted inside an installation, every one of Joseph’s video works remains humanistically poignant. Each piece takes us on a journey with striking audio such as stunning and haunting winds or digitally-enhanced sounds reminiscent of explosions and motion. Essentially figurative, these subjects within the films dance, run, walk, and engage their surroundings as if being unwatched. The environments remain an integrable part of Joseph’s concepts as they depict rapidly changing scenery and improvised sets which contradict the action of the figures such as dancing in a graveyard and construction site.
Guerrilla Dancer (pictured above) remains Joseph’s most dynamic work. The piece involves model Micaela Gardner frolicking across contradictory landscapes in the middle of a desolate highway, a barren dune, a dark forest, a shopping mall, a graveyard, a public park, and a construction site. Her dancing moves become carefully edited and choreographed to continuously flow from one location to another. There remains no music as she dances to the sound of howling winds with her white coat outfit offering a stark contrast against these barren and unbefitting environments. Micaela infiltrates these settings in a manner in which she poses great risk to herself by drawing attention to what could perhaps be interpreted as an inappropriate action depending on the point of view of the audience.
Joseph Farbrook explores the social and psychological impact of altering and interacting with environments through actions which could be described as conceptually contradictory based on suitability. His video art appears passionately constructed as if trying to have the viewer question the purpose of the figures in relation to their settings. By using selective areas for filming, Joseph creates an improvised set which conveys his concepts through human physical actions and attributes in relation and contrast to the environments. Stunning and psychologically thrilling, Joseph’s video work exemplifies innovation with minimal and economical application.
