RIDGEFIELD.- The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum opened Video A, a recurring exhibition program developed to informally present short contemporary video projects on an ongoing basis.

Video A debuted on August 10, 2008, with two works—Jumping Nauman—The Exhibitions of Bruce Nauman in 2006 by Miguel Soares and 16 Possibilities for an 8 Minute Car Drive (Shelburne, Nova Scotia) by Letha Wilson—that approach the idea of “mapping” the landscape from radically different perspectives. The videos, which loop on a large plasma monitor in The Aldrich’s Leir Atrium, will remain on view through December 7, 2008.

Soares’s digital video is approximately six minutes long and utilizes Google Earth—an Internet application that provides access to satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3-D buildings based on pinpoint searches—to visit all fifty-one places where American artist Bruce Nauman exhibited his work in 2006.

Wilson’s digital video places the viewer in the driver’s seat as sixteen possible options of a car ride gradually unfold, using time as the constant. The video, which is just over eight minutes long, concludes in unison as each route ends in the same location.

Richard Klein, Aldrich exhibitions director, says, “I’m pleased that this program will introduce more video into our exhibitions schedule. There is an enormous amount of interesting new video being produced and Video A gives the Museum the opportunity to consistently program significant new works by both emerging and established artists.”

The Museum will celebrate the exhibitions at a public reception on Sunday, September 14, 2008, from 3 to 5 pm. Refreshments will be served. Free round-trip transportation from New York City is available for members (non-members $15).
Aldrich exhibitions are supported, in part, by the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Miguel Soares was born in Braga, Portugal, and lives and works in Lisbon. He studied photography at Ar.Co (Lisbon) in 1989–1990. In 1995, he graduated in Design de Equipamento at Faculdade de Belas-Artes de Lisboa. His experimental work is often connected with science fiction, with the future of mankind and its creations, and displays a latent political and humorous ambiguity. In 2002, Soares began creating videos for his own musical compositions. Soares was awarded the BES Photo 2007 Award, one of the most prestigious art awards in Portugal. Recent solo exhibitions include: Museu da Electricidade and Galeria Graça Brandão, Lisbon (2007); Location One (2003) and Luxe Gallery (2004), New York. Recent group exhibitions include White Box, New York (2007); and La Caixa (2006) and Tecla Sala (2007), Barcelona.

Letha Wilson is a mixed media artist who was born in Honolulu, raised in Colorado, and currently lives in Brooklyn. Her countless excursions among the Rocky Mountains have helped place the natural world at the root of her artistic interests. She earned her BFA from Syracuse University and her MFA from Hunter College, New York. Wilson’s artwork has been shown at many venues in New York City, including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Socrates Sculpture Park, Exit Art, White Box, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, and Spencer Brownstone Gallery. She was recently awarded the Santa Fe Art Institute Fellowship, and will be a resident artist there in the spring of 2009.