Silvia Kolbowski, Kunsthaus Glarus | Im Volksgarten, September 4, 2022 - November 27, 2022

This solo show by Silvia Kolbowski, an erstwhile coeditor of October, features two video works, Who will save us?, 2022, and Missing Asher, 2019, both of which are cinematically projected in separate darkened viewing rooms at Kunsthaus Glarus. This is certainly fitting in the case of the new work, which collages elements from two science-fiction movies, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and George Lucas’s THX 1138 (1971). On paper, Kolbowski has edited the films together to emphasize how, under capitalism, alienation leads to the scapegoating of otherness. This synopsis, though, does not do justice to the optical vitality of the work, which begins with a sequence of monochromatic inserts à la Paul Sharits, and whose shots are intermittently repeated, inverted, and filtered through vibrant colors.