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20/1/2005

Nin Brudermann

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art - Old location, New York

N.A.S.D Projekt Fledermaus - Mixed Media Installation

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Nin Brudermanns N.A.S.D. (Naval Ammunition Support Detachment) Projekt Fledermaus. Through mixed media including video, photography, objects and plants, the artist communicates an enigmatic narrative of a post-apocalyptic scenery, which reflects the bizarre reality she encountered on her latest expedition to the abandoned military infrastructures of a former U.S. Navy bombing range. Although Brudermanns report is authentic, its product blurs the boundaries between dream and reality, forming a strangely absurd and ambiguous, yet beautiful depiction of her performative endeavor.

In this project, Brudermann mingles with scientists embarking on an expedition to the Caribbean Island of Vieques, formerly used by the U.S. Navy as a target-training island. Hundreds of abandoned ammunition magazines are currently appropriated by bats as the sole remaining witnesses of an obscure past, turning the former N.A.S.D. into a deserted city of bats, a Tarkovskian "Zone", visited occasionally by scientists for research and decontamination purposes.

During their expedition, Brudermann attached surveillance cameras to the heads of the members of the research team, resulting in a two-channel video that provides an authentic point of view on the given subject matter. As the viewer observes their nocturnal walk from bunker to bunker, engaged in bizarre activities of gathering information, capturing bats and uncovering new truths, a sense of apprehension and stress builds up, reinforced by Brudermanns cinematographic manipulations. The artist creates a compelling atmosphere of absurdity and suspense characterized by a rise and fall of climactic moments oscillating between the abstract and the concrete, simultaneously revealing and obscuring the true story, yet never fully granting the viewer a complete comprehension of the narrative, or a sense of catharsis.

Engendering further ambiguity, the artist expands the narrative spatially into the gallery by presenting objects that bear the burden of truth. On the one hand, sticky tape samples that enclose particles taken from the bats backs, and on the other seedlings that are sorted by bunker and ammunition type grown by the artist from the discarded seeds she found in the bunkers. The video displays Brudermann collecting the seeds as her own performative scientific contribution, bringing forth elements of regeneration in a playful and subtly ironic manner.

The photograph, which captures another fairy-tale moment that Brudermann happened upon during her walk amongst the stark and abandoned bunkers, portrays bats encircling the moonlit Reina de la Noche cactus blossom, that blooms peculiarly only one night a year. This aspect of strangely beautiful, post-apocalyptic eeriness, is at the core of this project, invoking new perspectives and discoveries, while a natural reality/ fantasy unfurls before the eyes of the viewer in a highly innovative and experiential manner.

Nin Brudermann is an Austrian artist, who lives and works in Brooklyn and Vienna. She received a BFA from the Schule fuer kuenstlerische Photographie in Vienna, an MFA from the University of Vienna and Academy of Fine Arts and participated in the International Studio Program at PS1- MOMA, NY. She has shown in several venues in the US and Europe and has taken part in numerous group shows in major institutions, such as the Kunsthalle Wien Projectspace and the Kunsthalle Museumsquartier, Vienna, and has participated with Makrolab in the Individual Systems Section of the 2003 Venice Biennale.

Image: Reina de la Noche - Ink Jet Print - 2004

Opening: Friday, January 21, 7-10PM

Priska Juschka Fine Art - 97 North 9th Street - Brooklyn, NY
Gallery hours: Wednesday through Monday 12:00 to 6:00 PM or by appointment.

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