Highlights from the Collection: Suara Welitoff’s "Kiss" and "Wireless"

Window Arcade Gallery

Two videos are part of a series focused on exceptional artworks from deCordova’s permanent collection. Works are rotated periodically, allowing visitors to experience rarely seen pieces.

Welitoff’s looping videos linger on specific moments. Her process consists of transforming still images and found video footage through distortion, glitches, blurs, and repetition. Inspired by old films, she embraces low-definition and reduced color. By manipulating continuous frames, Welitoff fixates on a particular feeling or experience, evoking memory and imagination.

Both videos blur their subjects to varying degrees, lending a sense of mystery. Kiss (2010) features two hummingbirds set against a clear blue sky. The video slows their rapid wing movements, accentuating their delicacy and poise and suggesting a rare moment in time. Wireless (2012) captures two dark silhouettes moving awkwardly into a white void, the incognito figures lacking identifiable traits and any indication of their intentions.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.