Chew, with Thomas Liu Le Lann

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VIN VIN, Vienna

, 2022

In a residential area on the outskirts of Geneva, in a white 2012 Subaru Legacy, Alfredo Aceto and Thomas Liu Le Lann chew white chocolate cubes. In Chew (2022), a video loop just under nine minutes long, the duo look like a caricature of Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) and Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Maybe it’s because the feature film’s never-ending digressions have little to do with the economy of the narrative, or because so many of the two protagonists’ occasionally inconsequential scenes take place in a car, but the HD video, with Aceto in his usual attire, a yellow sweater, blue tie, and white shirt, and Liu Le Lann in a brick-red jacket and white T-shirt — also plays upon digression. The collaborative work, in addition to providing the two-person show with its key image, also supplies its title. The chewing reaches its climax after the two-minute mark, when the video’s soundtrack materializes a flute solo piece titled Voice (1971) by Tôru Takemitsu, here performed by Chih-Yueh Yang. At this juncture, the guttural gestures of the musician’s mouth overlap with those of the two artists as they chew white chocolate.