Sadly, Nadine Hutton’s single instance exhibition at the Parking Gallery last week was not very well attended. One hand this is perhaps due to the gallery’s guerrilla policy of single showings. Unless the artist is very well known, or brings with him/her a large network of friends and supporters, the event is over so quickly that the art scene radar never has a chance to pick up on it. Also, in Nadine Hutton’s case, it is perhaps because she is not known as an "artist". Most who know of her, know her as a news photographer at the Mail&Guardian weekly.
Which is all just to say that a lot of people missed some striking examples of stop-frame video. Hutton is a practiced stills photographer, and her move from the significant instant tof the photograph to the durational flow of the stop-frame is full of interest. She displayed three videos: one on a TV set in the foyer; another projected onto a wall of the garage area (with the projector tied to the roof of a bakkie!); and a third in the interior "gallery" space. All played with different rhythms and narrative strategies; but it was the third, a study of Zionist religious ceremony which achieved real beauty and explored the possibilities of stop-frame as an artistic medium.
