Work by Mel Chin and Gala Committee on View in NYC

Recasting the gallery as a set for dramatic scenes, FADE IN: INT. ART GALLERY – DAY, on view through May 3 at the Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, NYC, explores the role that art plays in narrative film and television. FADE IN features the work of 25 artists including Mel Chin and the Gala Committee) and considers a history of art as seen in classic movies, soap operas, science fiction, pornography and musicals. These works have been sourced, reproduced and created in response to artworks that have been made to appear on-screen, whether as props, set dressings, plot devices, or character cues.

In the 1990s, Prospectus artist Mel Chin (Operation Paydirt in New England + Neurotoxic Element Music Video) and the Gala Committee collaborated with the creators of the primetime television soap opera Melrose Place to produce In the Name of the Place. According to The Arts Company Director Marie Cieri, who co-authored Activists Speak Out: Reflections on the Pursuit of Change in America, which featured In the Name of the Place in a chapter about Chin, the Gala Committee created props and set pieces “that inserted visual messages about gender, infectious diseases, violence, environmental devastation, and global conflict into the popular weekly series. These messages were meant to be subliminal and not disruptive to the episodes — the group instead wanted to tap into Melrose’s enormous international audience base to suggest meanings beyond standard soap-opera plots and dialogue.” A scene from Melrose Place, set within an art opening, makes up the Chin/Gala component of the exhibition.

The Swiss Institute Contemporary Art is located at 18 Wooster St., Manhattan.