Falling Silk

Cast upon a tall wall in the central gallery space of Western Bridge, images of striped silk squares tumble from ceiling to floor. The falling takes place over and over, and becomes repetitive, hypnotic. Jennifer Steinkamp's continuously looped film, Formation G, depicts an animated series of colorful squares, shiny, delicate, and thin, with stripes that exaggerate the silklike texture. Stand still long enough and you'll begin to observe a certain pace to the falling. Close to the ceiling, the silk drops slowly, but when it reaches the middle of the wall, it seems to accelerate. And then another square appears at the top, beginning its own slow fall. One after another, these shapes tumble over themselves in a seemingly endless riff on gravity—and, perhaps, loss. Similar installations have been seen at Lehmann Maupin in New York and at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. As the artist's site reads, this work is "variable, approx. 8–12 feet high, vertical, fits between edge of floor and ceiling."