Feet Handoff2010

In a single, unbroken 7-minute take from a stationary camera in a tight shot, Barbara Rosenthal trades a pencil back and forth between each of her toes, and then, pencil still between toes, writes her name on a yellow legal pad attached to a clipboard. The theme of hands and feet recurs often in this artist's work, and in "Feet Handoff" she intermixes them in yet another way. In this simple, straight-on, understated video, Rosenthal explores frustrating, although eventually successful, attempts to do something very basic, but using a part of ourselves unaccustomed to the task. As we watch it prevail, her foot appears more and more like a hand.