On view now at Arts and Letters, Sam Contis’ first institutional solo show in New York, “Phases”
Five Kilometers, Contis’s first major film, follows the faces of three girls as they run a 5K cross-country race through the Appalachian landscape. It is composed of three single takes, each one beginning with a shot from a starter pistol and ending after the runner completes her course. Each runner occupies a separate time—morning, midday, evening—but, in the gallery, the runners seem to move in unison, the sound of their breathing and footfalls filling the space. Paired with a sequence of 24 black-and-white photographs, both works explore running as ecstatic movement and performance—they are portraits of endurance that knot the anxiety and desire often projected onto young women. In them, one witnesses the way bodies moving through time become, for Contis, a way of telling time, their motion determining the shape and structure of her work.
Custom triptych screen, video engineering and 5.1 audio by
@c.a.v.e
Photo: Steven Probert
@artsandlettersnyc
@samcontis
Special thanks
@ashley.systems 
