calendario eventi  :: 

X

2/4/2003

Water, water

The Rotunda Gallery, New York

Katherine Bradford - Swimmer, Man - 2001 - Detail Guest curator Lilly Wei has assembled a group of artists who navigate water as both subject and medium. Works in many media evoke water in all its forms, from rushing bubbles and ethereal floating objects to crashing waves and melting ice cubes. The utilization of water as medium range from Simon Lee's wall projections through water that submerge viewers in a liquid environment, to Claudia Schmacke's mesmerizing, spiraled tubes of circulating water. Some of the artists explore human interaction with the water of the world in ways both playful and symbolic, from the New York surfers of Drew Heitzler's film The Subway Sessions to the video image of artist Patty Chang lapping water from the surface of her own reflection in a mirror. Other artists in Water, Water engage the theme through video, photography, painting and sculpture.

Participating Artists
Burt Barr
Katherine Bradford
Sebastiaan Bremer
Mary Carlson
Patty Chang
Drew Heitzler
Michael Krondl
Simon Lee
Susan Rabinowitz
Claudia Schmacke
Arlene Shechet
James Sheehan

Guest curator Lilly Wei

Burt Barr's pristine video of an ice cube melting in real time, wittily titled Slow Dissolve, is a gorgeous, succinctly matter-of-fact meditation on transience.

Katherine Bradford's painting Swimmer Man, depicting a buoyant figure in a serene blue-green field, is from an ongoing series in which she explores human interactions with water.

Sebastiaan Bremer weaves a dense web of dots and lines over his sparkling underwater photographs of a swimming pool that, following the hypnotic currents of the water, coalesce into the rhythms and images of memory.

Mary Carlson's Ice is a gleaming, glassy smooth, trompe-l'oeil sculpture that looks as if it were beginning to melt. Its message is about the enigmas of appearance.

Patty Chang's video Fountain takes on Duchamp's urinal and gives it a feminist gloss as she licks water from a mirror placed on the floor in a public lavatory. An impudent and subversive performance that makes us squirm and laugh at the same time.

Drew Heitzler's Subway Sessions, a half-hour documentary on Greater New York surf culture, is not an oxymoron. Filmed entirely on Super 8, his first film captures a glimmering sequence of late summer days that abruptly ended on September 11, 2001.

Michael Krondl's replicated image of water makes a moat around the gallery's stairs and forces you to pause before you enter the main exhibition space. It creates a divide between the real world and art, a comment on illusion and the viewer's complicity.

Simon Lee projects light through a tank of water filled with disparate objects to create a mysterious and marvelous tableau that utterly transforms its source.

Susan Rabinowitz's small, luminous paintings both depict seascapes and do not, depending on how you read her limpid, flickering surfaces and sea-tinged palette.

Claudia Schmacke's translucent, coiled tubes of flowing water are the antidote to sculpture as fixed, opaque and hard. In her bio-feminist interpretation, the lyrical coursing of liquid in organic shapes imitates the body's forms and circulatory systems.

Arlene Shechet's Casting Water is a project influenced by her daily crossings of the Brooklyn Bridge. She literally imprints East River water on wax, then rubber, creating a map of the moment.

James Sheehan's tiny paintings magically squeeze whole worlds into little more than four square inches. His water series include fully realized scenes with scores of figures.

Guest curator Lilly Wei is an independent curator and critic who writes frequently for Art in America and is a contributing editor at ARTnews and Art Asia Pacific. She is currently curating several other exhibitions, including "Twisting and Turning, Abstract Painting Now" for Blue Star in San Antonio and "The Invisible Thread: The Influence of Buddhism in Contemporary Art" for Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island.

The purchase of artwork is an important way individuals can support contemporary artists and share their work with others. The Rotunda Gallery is a not-for-profit exhibition space and retains 20% of the proceeds of sales to help underwrite its exhibitions and educational programs. Please ask the gallery sitter if you would like additional information.

Image: Katerine Bradford, Swimmer, Man, 2001
56" x 66"

OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION:
Thursday, April 3

Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 12-5pm Saturday, 11-4pm

Admission is FREE

The Rotunda Gallery is a program of BRIC/Brooklyn Information & Culture

The Rotunda Gallery, 33 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201
Directions: 2,3,4,5,M,N, and R trains to Court Street/Borough Hall

stampa

permanent link