“Ericka Beckman’s Cinderella, 1986, a 16-mm rendering of the fairy tale, is an Atari-like musical in which the title character staggers through various levels of narrative as if in a video game. As the centerpiece of a spellbinding exhibition, this rarely screened film demonstrated the staying power of Beckman’s work thirty years on. Mostly employing the artist’s signature palette of bold primary colors against black backgrounds, the stylized film resembles the classic tale only insofar as a female protagonist is put through the wringer of some odd gender socialization: Cinderella toils at an inferno of a hearth and is taunted by the whistle of an abstracted blue clock tower (and by an accordion-wielding companion played by Mike Kelley, a previous collaborator and performer in Beckman’s oeuvre). She is transformed from dull laborer to post-punk princess in neon green and taffeta; she becomes a digital avatar fabricated on an assembly line; she dances with a prince. The work is anxious and hyperactive, allegorical and arcane.”
