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Incidents

1996–97
Not on view
In this video, the husband-and-wife team of Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky follow all manner of discarded items—cups, cartons, bags, newspapers, broken umbrellas, a pipe, unspooled audiotape—as they are blown around by the wind on the street. The results are balletic, whimsical, and even filled with pathos. Each piece of trash becomes anthropomorphized, so that when two bags or wrappers collide, are intertwined, and separate, the viewer cannot help but project a human drama onto the proceedings. Incidents is filled with such incidents, and part of the pleasure of the piece is seeing how the artists pile on example after example and yet are able to imbue each found object with an irreducible individuality and silent poetry.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Incidents
  • Artist: Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky (American, born 1954 and 1950)
  • Artist: Igor Kopystiansky (American, born 1954)
  • Artist: Svetlana Kopystiansky (American, born 1950)
  • Date: 1996–97
  • Medium: Single-channel digital video, color, sound, 14 min., 49 sec.
  • Classification: Variable Media
  • Credit Line: Anonymous Gift, 2010
  • Object Number: 2010.458
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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