calendario eventi  :: 

X

27/1/2012

Three exhibitions

Art in General, New York

Mounira Al Solh
Dinosaurs
6th Floor Gallery

A series of scenes that seem both familiar yet brand new. A grouping of characters that seem to live in an eternal present conditioned by everlasting chaos and unrest. A set of locations marked by darkness and yet illuminated by the intensity of those that inhabit them. A narrative that instead of answering a specific question, is in itself a search for answers.

Mounira Al Solh's new film installation, Dinosaurs, takes its inspiration from five different films by John Cassavetes. Culling vignettes from Opening Night, Minnie & Moskowitz, Husbands, The Killing of A Chinese Bookie, and Faces (originally titled Dinosaurs and used as the title of this exhibition.) Al Solh directs her friends to reenact specific scenes wherein the act of drinking reveals moments of intimacy, aggression, and loneliness. Invoking Cassavetes as both a means of study and a lens, Al Solh reflects on the relationship between substance and evaporation, exploring how alcohol can become instrumental in confronting fate. Dinosaurs' fragmented scenes build a fragile portrait of a place in flux, a loose narrative that continues to unravel and unhinge with each drink. At once claustrophobic, circular and tense, Al Solh's reinterpretation of Cassavetes creates a space of suspended chaos.

Mounira Al Solh was born in Beirut in 1978. She studied painting at the Lebanese University in Beirut (LB), and Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (NL). Between 2006 and 2008, she was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Al Solh's New Commissions exhibition at Art in General is her first solo exhibition in New York. Her work will also be featured in The Ungovernables, The Second New Museum Triennial, opening in February 2012.

--------------

Katrin Sigurdardottir
Stage
Storefront Project Space

A miniature theater hangs from the ceiling of an empty, unlit storefront space. A single spotlight illuminates the theater's stage, casting wild shadows that permeate the space and break through onto the street. The stage hangs precariously, a suspended moment of tension irradiating from within. As the day unfolds and the sun sets, the shadows grow stronger, marking time with their formidable presence. Though lit the stage is empty, the theatrics of such architecture transposed to the shadow play inside the storefront.

Real and imagined, miniature yet enormous, Katrin Sigurdardóttir's site-specific installation, Stage, pushes beyond the physical boundaries of the storefront, compelling an immediate, direct, and intimate encounter for the passer-by. Emphasizing the relationship between inside-outside and passage-enclosure, Stage causes viewers to rethink their own perception of space, assuming an unexpected mise-en-scène that blurs what "is" and what is imagined.

Katrin Sigurdardóttir was born in Iceland and currently lives and works between Reykjavik and New York. In the last 15 years, her works have been shown extensively in Europe, North- and South America and are included in numerous public and private collections. Her most recent solo exhibitions include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Suburban, Chicago, Eleven Rivington, New York, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, Galeria Leme Sao Paulo, Brazil and FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Rema Hort Mann Foundation and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Brooklyn Rail, Art Papers, Die Zeit, Vogue, Surface Magazine, Modern Painters, Contemporary Magazine, ArtNews, Flash Art and Artforum International.

--------------

Theresa Himmer
All State
Musee Miniscule in Art in General Elevator

Theresa Himmer's site-specific audio installation All State, realized in collaboration with Kristján Eggertsson, responds to the physical and psychological parameters of the elevator. Using the repetitive motion and existing sounds of the Art in General elevator as her starting points, All State amplifies an environment already attuned to heightened sensitivity, positioning viewers somewhere between real and imagined space. In the compact interior of the elevator, Himmer's uncanny score of recorded sounds disrupts our notion of cause and effect. Through repetition, duplication and overlap, All State mimics reality and belies function. At once, signifiers of both visible and invisible operations (the passing of floors, the overhead fan, the opening of doors) become hollow, irrational and destabilizing.

Theresa Himmer was born in Denmark and lives and works in New York City. Himmer's site-specific installations integrate the languages of architecture and art to create cinematic environments. Himmer has exhibited internationally with site-specific installations in Russia, Mexico, Iceland, and others. She recently exhibited at Steven Stoyanov Gallery, New York and the National Gallery of Iceland, Dyndilyndi. Himmer is currently attending the Independent Studio Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Kristján Eggertsson is an architect and experimental musician. Born in Iceland he lives and works internationally, with ongoing projects across Europe. Eggertsson’s practice navigates architecture, urban planning and site-specific installation. He studied philosophy at the University of Iceland and Aarhus University before completing his studies at the Aarhus School of Architecture in 2003. In 2006, he cofounded KRADS, an architecture and design practice based in Denmark and Iceland. In 2010, Eggertsson collaborated with artist Theresa Himmer on Entrance, a site-specific architectural intervention at the National Gallery of Iceland.

Image: Mounira Al Solh, "Dinosaurs," 2012. Image courtesy the artist.

Media Contact
Maureen Sullivan Red Art Projects maureen@redartprojects.com

Reception with the Artists: Saturday, January 28, 6–8pm

Art in General is located one block south of Canal Street, between Broadway and Lafayette.
79 Walker Street New York
Subways: 1, A-C-E, N-R-Q, J-Z, or 6 to Canal Street
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday 12 to 6 pm.

stampa

permanent link