American Cinematographer - January 2009 - 10

Short Takes Forging Triangle of Need for Catherine Sullivan by Iain Stasukevich Five Economies from Sullivan’s perspective when the piece premiered at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles — on five 20'-tall screens. “I was astounded,” he says. “I got the concept and the way it moved around you as a viewer in the center of it all. Once I saw the fruits of our labor, I was so excited and proud of the work that I really wanted to keep the relationship going.” Four collaborations later, in August 2007, Sullivan and Germain introduced their latest and largest installation, Triangle of Need, at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center. Like Five Economies, Triangle was conceived as a multi-screen fine-art experience involving the layering of many different storylines and locations playing simultaneously on multiple projectors and television screens. According to the artist’s statement, Triangle “delves into corporate corruption and the idea of conforming old ideals to new ones in a modern age.” Triangle’s genesis can be traced to when Sullivan was invited to make a piece at the Villa Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, a 16th-century Italian-style estate built as a winter home for American industrialist James Deering in Biscayne Bay, Fla. When Sullivan first encountered Vizcaya’s main house, formal gardens, lagoon and derelict village, she was inspired by its potential as a location for one of the pieces. The project comprises several short films that form a cohesive whole. In one room, a six-minute looped projection intercuts 16mm shots of a spinning figure skater with blown-up Super 8mm footage from a Quinceañera (a traditional Latino coming-of-age celebration for young women) at Vizcaya. In an adjoining chamber, three flat-screen Above: Mistresses bid farewell from a barge in Triangle of Need, an installation piece directed by Catherine Sullivan and photographed by Raoul Germain. Below: One of the installation’s three rooms at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I n 2002, five years after Catherine Sullivan transitioned from live theater to producing and directing conceptualvideo works, she began developing her first commission, which became Five Economies (big hunt/little hunt). With a larger budget than she had previously enjoyed, she decided to expand her work into a multi-screen project that would replicate the experience of watching a theater piece. To capture the complex imagery the project required, Sullivan turned to cinematographer Raoul Germain, whom she had met when Germain was gaffing an independent feature for a mutual friend. When their collaboration began on Five Economies, Sullivan was a bit cryptic about the subject matter, says Germain. “Most of the time, she would just say, ‘These are the images we’re going to shoot.’” Germain was finally able to see 10 January 2009 Photos and frame grabs courtesy of the filmmakers.

American Cinematographer - January 2009

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