multi channel collaboration
The Golden Age is a video triptych collaboration of José Angel Toirac, Meira Marrero, and Patricia Clark (2000) weaving media coverage, cartoons, propaganda films etc around the story of Elian.
“Five-year-old Elian Gonzales became the center of an international argument in 1999. His mother had drowned in an effort to leave Cuba, and little Elian was rescued only to become the center of a tug-of-war over whether he should be given permanent status in the United States or returned to his father in Cuba. During a residency at Arizona State University, Cuban artists José Angel Toirac and Meira Marrero worked with American artist Patricia Clark to make La Edad de Oro (The Golden Age), a video triptych that puts together American and Cuban reporting of the day by day vicissitudes of the child’s life.” http://www.havana-guide.com/cubanart.html
Patricia Clark has somewhat a trailer version of it (without the complex soundtrack) on her website (which features other glimpses of her single and three channel work).
see Patricia Clark’s website
http://www.patriciaclarkvideo.com/projects/la_edad_de_oro.html
arizona state university art museum website
http://asuartmuseum.asu.edu/cubancollectionexh/index.html
I saw it at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal within the impressive exhibition they put together on Cuban Art. It is interesting in terms of collaborative artistic work and telling a multi-dimensional, multi-perspective story. Through Elian’s story, the artists have created a complex take on Cuban history, illusions and disillusionments and the Cuban-American saga.