The first video I saw by Laurel Nakadate was in P. S. 1 ’s “Greater New York” show in 2005. I was immediately struck by the scene in which she appeared weeping on a New York City rooftop, dressed in a Girl Scout uniform. Behind her, a column of smoke spilled forth from the burning Twin Towers. As inconceivable as it seems, Laurel shot that footage on September 11. Watching it, I knew I was witnessing the work of a real artist.

Next, I saw Laurel’s videos featuring a succession of socially inept middle-aged men, many of whom she got to know because they approached her in the street or hit on her in parking lots. She acts out strange encounters with these men in her dingy apartment or in theirs: they listen to each other’s hearts with stethoscopes, for instance, or dance to Britney Spears. Critics have an easy time dismissing her work as exploitative. But these pieces are poignant and complicated, and, above all, they offer a picture of something real: the experience of ­being hit on by…