From the darkness, a bright, circular spotlight illuminates a theater curtain. Searching intermittently along its folds, the light traces paths which uncover crimson underneath deep black. The curtain finally pulls upward revealing a moon of bright white. The opening images of Mary Helena Clark’s By foot-candle light (2011) present viewers with a prototypical symbol of cinema-going, a moment of anticipation not typically found in a venue like London’s Laura Bartlett Gallery, with its white walls and light-leaking windows. Clark’s video is shown in an exhibition consisting of a single daily projection of five moving image works selected by British artist-filmmaker Beatrice Gibson. Though not a curator, like many artists working with moving images, Gibson has occasionally been put into the role of selecting films to show alongside her works. Previous instances of this have comprised combinations of the work of artist peers (like Clark and Laida Lertxundi) and important influences (Tony Conrad and William Greaves). This exhibition, under the framework of research-in-progress for upcoming films, functions in much the same way, and displays an understated yet impressive curatorial cohesion while at the same time being beholden to the peculiarities of transposing a cinematic presentation to a commercial gallery. “Go on, …

These days nothing fades quicker than a trend. Who would like to be caught dead in the haircut Jennifer Aniston sported as Rachel in the 1990s television series “Friends.” Hairstyles are not meant to last, and yet some of their advertisements have found a small niche of survival in outmoded hair salons. Fading in the display windows, they enter a curiously frozen state, that is, they fade so slowly so as only to be barely recognized as fleeting leftovers from another season. In her series “The Blues” (2012) Nina Beier presents these found advertisement photographs she discovered in salons in Denmark. Now faded to grey and left with a cold bluish tint, the photographs appear dated and futuristic at the same time. Framed behind window glass, Beier does not attempt to delay the aging progress but accepts it as something intrinsic to the nature of this type of image. Like a developing process in reverse, the images are left to grow increasingly fainter and outmoded until they will eventually disappear, just like the trends did they are sporting. In her current show “Shirts vs Skins” at Laura Bartlett Gallery, Nina Beier stages a confrontation between the objects that we create to outlast …