YOSHIZAKI HEAVY INDUSTRIES FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT

Joshua Solondz

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

PUTTY'S CORONATION is pleased to announce the opening of YOSHIZAKI HEAVY INDUSTRIES FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT, a solo performance and exhibit by Joshua Solondz at Trestle Studios on 62 18th St. Brooklyn, NY 11232.  

YOSHIZAKI HEAVY INDUSTRIES FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT November 23- December 14, 2019

Open Reception November 23rd, 2019 4-6pm

Warning: This video contains strobing viewer discretion is advised for individuals with photosensitive epilepsy.

In his solo debut for Putty’s Coronation, Joshua Solondz presents, YOSHIZAKI HEAVY INDUSTRIES FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT. An examination of his most recent film, (tourism studies). 

(tourism studies) is composed from footage shot locally and abroad over the past decade. Using travel movies, home movies, and fragments from projects that never came to fruition, Solondz works intuitively- allowing the footage and editing process to guide him.  The result is a fragmented kaleidoscopic film that functions as a Rorschach test of himself.  A formalist self-portrait that touches upon Solondz’s mixed heritage, the years long self journey both preceding and following his mother’s death, and the birth of his child. (tourism studies) captures Solondz’s unique perspective that hovers between intimate and dissociative; meditative and psychotic. 

Solondz’s editing style in (tourism studies) begins to feel like a lamination or an accumulation of images, rather than a sequential film, at times images evolve cascading between images until they become one or mirror itself on the y axis.  The short, chopped cuts and opening narration that taps into an ASMR-esk aesthetic, taking on a physicality that immerse the viewer. The last image still burns in your retina as the second one appears, and then a third - merging together as a heavy physical form that pulls at your eyelids. Like a flashback, disjointed, incongruous moments that we remember, but at the same time do not recognize.  

Accompanying the film are a series of Rorschach test drawings that were produced during the editing process of (tourism studies). These drawings give the viewer a deeper look into Solondz’s editing process while simultaneously being self-reflexive. What the viewer sees in the drawings, and/or what the viewer thinks Solondz’s may have seen in the drawings, informs the viewer (whether the viewer is correct or incorrect is beside the point) of Solondz’s editing choices while forcing them to consider their assessment of the images and projected significance.

Joshua Gen Solondz studied at Bard College and received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his partner and occasional collaborator Emma Brenner-Malin. He’s screened in a variety of festivals including Images, Toronto International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Onion City, Black Maria, Portland International, Milwaukee Underground, CAAMFest, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Chicago Underground, Locarno, Mar del Plata, FIC Valdivia, Viennale, and New York Film Festival’s Projections. He has also shown at venues such as REDCAT, Light Industry, UnionDocs, Harvard Film Archive, MoMA, DINCA, NYU, Red Room, ATA, 3s, and Black Hole Cinematheque.