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ArtReview

Emily Newman – 4,000km From the Mouth at Klaus von Nichtssagend

By David Everitt Howe

April, 2009

This exhibition was inspired by Newman’s move from New York to St Petersburg in 2004 and is a culmination of her time there as both a resident and a foreigner. The four films collected here quietly but skillfully juxtapose, parallel and articulate Russian and American culture. ‘Valhalla, New York/Chernova, Leningradsky Oblast’ (2008) offers a split-screen passenger-seat view of the strikingly similar countryside around the New York hamlet and the post-Soviet vacation destination. In another split-screen video, footage of Newman’s son in a nursery school is paired with video of a quiet, solemn Russian ethnographic museum. That Newman partly suppresses her own role as objective observer is commendable.