Tragic Love

This rich, lyrical, but problematic video installation by British artist Isaac Julien is the final piece in a trilogy exploring issues of migration.

It claims as its subject the tragedy of impoverished Africans risking the treacherous 100-mile crossing to Sicily from West Africa on small fishing boats, though it is dealt with in mythopoeic fashion. In the first gallery, the viewer is confronted by a screen hanging at a diagonal, on both sides of which is projected a slowly panning shot of a decrepit vessel marooned on a Mediterranean shore.

In the next space, the crux of the exhibition, a film plays on three screens arranged in the corner of the room. This juxtaposes scenes of beautiful women — one black, one white — wandering around the Palazzo Gangi (familiar from Luchino Visconti's classic movie, "The Leopard"), balletic enactments of death throes by drowning, shots of despondent Africans adrift at sea, and scenes of a poor African village. Minor-key African music provides a suitably somber, elegiac sound track.

Like much of his work, Mr. Julien's film exhibits profound feeling, an impeccable sense of timing, and a sumptuous palette. Incidents segue with great finesse from screen to screen, with suggestive contrasts of scale, color, and locale.

But ultimately, there is a little too much craft for so harrowing a subject. The migrations have been dubbed the "Sicilian Holocaust." The use of all-too artfully choreographed dancers and locations worthy of tourist boards seems dubious, although the intention of universalizing a current event, of making a timeless, classical memorial for these poor people, is laudable.

Until November 17 (519 W. 24th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-206-7100).