Big Window first showcased Fall with “Baitball” in Polignano a Mare, Italy

Kate Liebman’s split screen Fall transcendently threads mythological narratives and contemporary occurrences. The descent of Icarus, and the evolutions of Sky Woman are interwoven with the realities of decomposing whales, ruptured bodies and submarines, galactic explorations, and mechanical dependencies. Computerized text hypnotically propels patched stories together alongside analog imagery ranging from birds and planes to numbers, fused figures, planetary orbs, and written messages in English and Hebrew. In both content and presentation, the work explores commensalism in real-time and through other-worldly parallels, addressing head-on that symbiotic relationships do not end with the living.

The title of this work belies the key verb that sets its woven elements into motion, while the reverberations of falls give the work its gravitas. When the ocean’s largest creatures pass, their bodies sink. As they lay resting on the water’s bottom their decomposing cavity cyclically sustains scavengers. In the Iroquois tale, many creatures are mobilized to prevent calamity and alter the course of Sky Woman’s fall. It is birds that catch her descending body, a turtle on which she lands, and otters and beavers who lay her bed of dirt. This creature-collective unlocks that which grows to be land’s mass. In each fall there is consequence and in this ricochet lays connectivity.

Liebman’s welcoming of machines into her multifaceted arch prompts awareness of not only galactic frontiers, but also the manners in which metal made devices support and deflate humanity. Attention is brought to ventilators, whose role is to help revitalize air pathways, mere moments after the tale of an air-filled submarine is unraveled. Connection and dependency are not only about living and passed mammals, but also about inanimate matter. As if fusing an image of trans-worldly symbioses, Liebman projects her construction into water, reflecting the technological onto the organic.

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