On exhibition through March 8, 2026
The MAC’s new video wall launches with “SEER”, an original work by award-winning video artist Naomie Kremer
Unbidden
Once beheld
One is beholden
In the blink of an eye
Subject, object
Verb and reverb
recycle in cycleOnce, out of time
Longing set in
In time for a touch
The touch of the land
On feet, in hand…
Brought this wonder
To behold
An ending beginning
Since time
Never stops
For no one
–The Eye of the Beholder (2024), by Naomi Kremer
Excerpt from essay by cultural historian Karen Fiss (2024):
Who is the Seer in Naomie Kremer’s video? The giant eye which fills the screen, or the female figure who, with eyes closed, explores her darkened sphere – a seer who doesn’t actually see? Or is it perhaps the viewer, us, invited briefly to gaze through this strange portal onto an unfolding cosmic world? Is this eye a ‘window onto a soul’ or something else?
The imagery evokes in many ways a creation narrative, Genesis: darkness and light, sky and water, the appearance of earth and plant life, and perhaps the first Eve rather than an Adam? In Kremer’s play of micro- and macro-scale, the female figure is both the “apple of the eye,” centered in the iris, and the colossus of the world, a floating Amazon filling nearly the entire globe.. Is she the Creator or the created? Is she the power behind the omnipotent eye or its object?…
It is perhaps a reminder for us to see, touch and feel expansively whenever we have the chance, as well as to create our own opportunities to do so.
Creator
Naomie Kremer is a painter, video artist, and stage designer. She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad. Her work is in many private and public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the US Embassy, Beijing, China.
Kremer’s video based set designs include the San Francisco production of Tristan and Isolde, by Richard Wagner; Lucia Berlin Stories, performed in San Francisco and Paris by Word for Word Theater Company; Alcina, by George F Handel, performed in Acre, Israel, by the French Baroque orchestra Les Talens Lyriques; the world premiere production of The Secret Garden co-commissioned by San Francisco Opera and Cal performances; Light Moves, a collaboration with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company; and Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók, commissioned by the Berkeley Opera. In the Beginning Was Desire, for which she conceived and created the animation, was her first film project. In 2024 she worked with Shadowlight Productions to create a short film based on Marc Chagall’s autobiography. The film won an award for best experimental film at the Austin International Art Festival.
Collaborators
Dave Taylor, Digital Content Producer at University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Related programs
Meet the Artist; date to be announced.
