1pm006, Ara Araunara — by Magdalena Fernández

The Caracas-based artist created an animated riff on the formalist canvases of Ellsworth Kelly.

The 58-second-long segment above comprises half the piece, which in toto runs one minute, 55 seconds.

Wrote Jessica Dawson in today's Washington Post review, "Fernández imagined her video as a wrestling match between the big blocks of color set against one another in a typical formalist canvas. Here, Fernandez pits unmatched rivals: to the left, two-thirds of her screen is occupied by an obstinate expanse of blue. To its right, a much smaller rectangle of yellow sits atop a patch of lime. The video finds the puny yellow pushing up against the blue, attempting to annex space from its rival. This proves a Sisyphean task."

"The video's proceedings wouldn't mean much without Fernández's soundtrack. As yellow strains against blue, we hear what sounds like a grown man grunting and huffing. But the joke is on us: The soundtrack turns out to be the recording of a squawking parrot, a bird oblivious to modernism's dominance."

The 2006 piece (in its entirety) is part of a show entitled "Space, Unlimited," up through April 12, 2009 at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C.