An Exhibition Makes Absence Present
Tara Anne Dalbow, Hyperallergic
April 2025
It was 65 degrees and sunny the day I visited Earthshaker, an exhibition of work by Ana Mendieta, Derek Jarman, and P. Staff staged across two rooms at Del Vaz Projects. Between the entrance and the gallery door is a courtyard with a terracotta fountain, a mass of night-blooming jasmine, and a bowed lemon tree. Encountering Staff’s hallucinatory five-channel video installation in any context would be a jarring experience. But stepping from the sun-filled patio into a small dark room thrumming with the sound of rotary propellers and strobing with fluorescent lights, flickering texts, and vertiginous colored discs precipitates a dislocation of another order. To start, your eyes, unable to adjust to the sudden darkness or the bursts of acrid light, go temporarily blind. Then, along with the film playing across five holographic LED fans, is an array of ocular disturbances: coruscating spots, sparks of electrical charge, a building sensation of pressure. The lights seem to course through you, leaving visual scars in their stead. […]