The New Yorker, February 22, 2009
Goings On About Town
JANET BIGGS
A ten-minute video pairs two seemingly unrelated scenes: a gospel chorus belting out a song (with lyrics written by Biggs) and a motorcycle racer speeding across the otherworldly landscape of Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. The subjects connect through their backstories: the biker, Leslie Porterfield, suffered an accident on the Flats in 2007 and, like the singers in Harlem’s Addicts Rehabilitation Center Choir, has overcome adversity. The work lifts its title, “Vanishing Point,” from a cult road movie, whose aimless plot could be summed up as “going nowhere fast.” The reference, which adds little, seems aimed at hipster cred. But never mind, because Biggs’s video is a visually—and aurally—transporting ride. Through Feb. 7. (Oliver, 513 W. 26th St. 212-929-5949.)