The Gift of Gab

The Gift of Gab presents the sobering tale of life and death, love and loss, all told through a series of simple everyday exchanges. As a father plays with his son, a family sits down to dinner and a mother breastfeeds by the fire, Kuchar’s use of static and solarization encroaches upon these Hallmark moments, revealing their storybook exchanges to be a fiction. Cutting back to Kuchar’s apartment, he demonstrates his own style of interpersonal relations as he bombards his guest with questions, taunting him with cat toys before finally losing interest in the banter in favor of playing with his cat. Quickly becoming the focus of the video, Kuchar’s cat reveals the true nature of human emotion’s capacity for affection and sentimentality as well as malice and destruction.

– Kyle Riley