Crossing the threshold of the “Veieja Escuelera” exhibition at Synesthesia Gallery, Brooklyn, visitors find themselves enveloped in an eerie haze of green light that is both sensuous and disquieting. This is not the only defamiliarizing element since the floor is carpeted with artificial grass and the light works encompass phrases in multiple languages. On Anne Katrine Senstad’s turf, nothing is what it seems at first sight. A Norwegian artist living between New York and Oslo, she uses light both environmentally and sculpturally to expose the interdependence between perceptual experience, cognition, and ideological beliefs. Her practice engages both with the phenomenological inquiries of minimalist artists such as Dan Flavin and Robert Irwin and with the tongue-in-cheek propositions of Conceptual artists such as Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman who have paired neon light with text to invite reflection on the function of art as sign.
Continue reading “Anne Katrine Senstad – Being (Un)schooled”Strata of Time: a burying and unearthing of new discoveries at Elorea
Stepping into the exhibition Strata of Time at Elorea, the focus is not only on the works hanging on the walls but also the fragrances around them as well. With works placed throughout a perfume shop, Herok was given the opportunity to respond to the fragrances surrounding his works. He uses his process of layering to overlay different colors, materials, and experiences of both to mimic the processes the perfume makers used to create their products, as they mix and meld various scents. The works are nicely displayed throughout the space; some works, like Out of Field 5, Out of Field 4, and See You Again, are displayed alongside products, while other walls allow works to stand on their own. This is an interesting exhibition collaboration that grew from studying the products and interviewing store personnel, a process that generated a new body of work carrying as many small details within the surfaces as the fragrances carry within the perfumes.
Continue reading “Strata of Time: a burying and unearthing of new discoveries at Elorea “Kosuke Kawahara’s Without Innocence, Dissecting and Reassembling at RAINRAIN Gallery
Stepping into the exhibition Without Innocence at RAINRAIN gallery, you are greeted with a plethora of various mediums, ideas, influences, and experimentations. The paintings carry with them several levels of looking, small details to explore, and multiple dimensions within the edges. The photographs set the scene, allowing you to enter another space just as the paintings do, left to explore the worlds that Kawahara creates and builds within it all. The press release introduces a quote from Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto, “…we are living through a movement from an organic, industrial society to a polymorphous, information system—from all work to all play, a deadly game (p 28).” This statement lingers alongside my thoughts throughout the exhibition, as I begin to notice more details, connections, and mechanisms that make this exhibition immensely similar to a cyborg in the making. Kawahara takes pieces of the body and fractions of different spaces within the canvas to build something entirely new out of all of these information systems.
Continue reading “Kosuke Kawahara’s Without Innocence, Dissecting and Reassembling at RAINRAIN Gallery”Learning Where There Is No Bottom: On the Thresholds of Swim Lessons
When I first learned how to swim as a child, my instructor told me to hold onto the edge of the pool and practice kicking. He counted the rhythm aloud, occasionally adjusting the angle of my body. Water kept splashing into my face, yet I could not make myself move forward. The actions had been broken down into steps: kicking, stroking, breathing, and I seemed to complete each one, but they never came together as a whole. Then, at some point, I stopped sinking. I still cannot say what exactly happened in that moment.
Continue reading “Learning Where There Is No Bottom: On the Thresholds of Swim Lessons”Floating in Three Acts- Keren Anavy at SUNY
Floating names a state of suspension, between sinking and surviving, between grief and the body’s refusal to stop. In Keren Anavy’s landmark solo exhibition, Floating in Three Acts, this condition is both subject and structure. The exhibition is built the way floating feels: without firm ground, without clear direction, with the question of outcome left open.
Continue reading “Floating in Three Acts- Keren Anavy at SUNY”Memories, Recollections and Everyday Life, Xiangjie Rebecca Wu at Latitude Gallery
Upon entering the exhibition at Latitude Gallery, you are greeted with a poem as a silent welcome, the cadence of the poem setting both the scene and the pace of the exhibition, titled A Room Rehearses its Own. In this exhibition, the paintings of Xiangjie Rebecca Wu piece together place, memory, and silence, with an impactful portrayal through both presence and absence.
Continue reading “Memories, Recollections and Everyday Life, Xiangjie Rebecca Wu at Latitude Gallery “