“When I first came back to Earth after 128 days in space,” astronaut David Wolf recounts in Rachel Rose’s video Everything and More, “I thought I had ruined my life. . .because gravity felt so heavy.” Opalescent pools of liquid churn cosmically as he speaks. Wolf, who spacewalked above Earth on the Mir Space Station in the ’90s, offers a grounding awareness in the face of the mesmerizing phantasmagoria onscreen. The 11-and-a-half-minute film, on view in a corner gallery abutting the Frank Stella retrospective, seamlessly blends scientific rigor (Rose shot in a weightlessness-inducing neutral buoyancy pool at the University of Maryland) and fantastical experiences. The video’s effects conjure Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as the DIY chic of Marilyn Minter (a homemade brew of milk, ink, baby oil and dyed water created the swirling faux Milky Way). The haptic result is a surprisingly relatable exploration of life within the cosmos.
Pictured: Rachel Rose: Everything and More, 2015, HD video, 11 minutes 33 seconds. Courtesy Pilar Corrias, London.