Visitors to the Contemporary Art Galleries are used to finding interesting and thought-provoking exhibits by artists working in a variety of media. The gallery’s newest exhibition, “Crosstalk,” breaks new ground by turning the gallery into a pseudo movie theater.

“Crosstalk” presents the work of four internationally renowned artists who work in video and feature music as fine art content. A video from each artist will be shown in the gallery for one week, essentially creating a solo exhibition for each, through Dec. 14.

CAG curator Barry Rosenberg says his goal with the exhibition is to spark dialogue across the arts, since the videos combine visual art, performance, and music, the genres that encompass the scope of academic focus in School of Fine Arts at UConn.

“I’m always interested in working with other departments,” says Rosenberg, noting that CAG exhibitions in recent years that have been tied to ornithology research, literature, and puppetry. “Each one of the four uses music or presents music in a very different way.”

The video artists include:

• Jesper Just, who studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and whose work explores and challenges traditional representations of masculinity in Hollywood films. His 2004 video, “No Man Is an Island II” features the Roy Orbison song, “Crying.”
• Clinton Watkins, whose work investigates the effects of sonic and visual information on an audience. His “Landscape Distortions” is a 2010 work that features bands of changing colors created by turning the sound from videos of landscapes into electronic colors.
• Complaint Choir Tokyo, a video of choirs in Tokyo seen singing melodically on stage and in other environments with a translation of their words such as “I don’t know how to use my iPhone,” “Unwanted hair is growing fast, but the hair on my head doesn’t grow at all,” and “My laundry isn’t clean from the dry cleaners.”
• Janet Biggs, who works in video and performance with links to athletes. Her “Fade to White” from 2010, follows a kayaker traveling to Antarctica.

The front of the gallery features posters created by Bruce Pavlow, echoing the film posters usually seen in the lobby of movie houses and multiplex theaters. Pavlow’s work uses pop culture images often found on the bedroom walls of teenagers, using a collage technique with the language of bumper stickers found in toy stores and on the Internet. The poster images include Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, and Culture Club. The artist has exhibited at The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Center for the Arts in New York, and the University of California Art Museum in Berkeley.

“They’re really interesting images about youth culture and issues of gender. I thought they were perfect for a university setting,” says Rosenberg, who saw Pavlow’s work in a New York City exhibition earlier this year.

“Crosstalk” begins with Jesper Just through Nov. 8 and continues in sequence with Clinton Watkins, Complaints Choir, and Janet Biggs, through Dec. 14. The Contemporary Arts Galleries is at 830 Bolton Road, Storrs. For more information go to: http://contemporaryartgalleries.uconn.edu/