Daniel Rothbart
dal 24/5/2006 al 2/6/2006
Segnalato da
24/5/2006
Daniel Rothbart
The Lab Gallery, New York
Through his studio work and the written word, Rothbart has helped to shape a new direction for American art that remains distinct from European issues and concerns. In a refreshingly new way, he affirms the need to explore religious, social historical, and cultural values in a multiethnic, highly specialized society.
Les Jeux sont Faits
curated by Enrico Pedrini
Daniel Rothbart is an American artist of the
younger generation, whose interests are not
limited to a formal investigation of the language of
art, but extend to new fields of endeavor. He is an
acute observer of cultural systems and
environments that interact with contemporary art.
Through his studio work and the written word,
Rothbart has helped to shape a new direction for
American art that remains distinct from European
issues and concerns. In a refreshingly new way, he affirms the need
to explore religious, social historical, and cultural values in a multiethnic,
highly specialized society.
Jewish mysticism influenced the development of post-war American
art, and in Rothbart’s work cabbalistic symbolism is transformed into
the basis of a personal mythology. Rothbart’s work creates a new
paradigm, in which conceptual art ceases to be self-referential art for
art and rather becomes a cultural drive that allows new potential and
meaning to emerge. Myth becomes a dynamic collective memory that
allows new attitudes toward creative discourse to take form, and at
the same time focuses renewed attention on the need for humanity to
affirm its presence and identity.
Rothbart’s sculpture embodies a poetical surrealism drawn from the
realm of myth, and his imagery develops out of the historical
sedimentation of life experience and scholarship. His fantastic world of
myth prompts one to reconsider the sacred as a point of interaction
where icons and symbols converge and undergo changes of meaning.
Rothbart’s work opposes currents in contemporary art bound to
irreversibility in science (information superhighways, genetics and
cloning), but is decidedly timely.
Semiotic Street Situations, a term invented by Rothbart, becomes the
stage on which symbolic, social, and cultural exchanges occur.
Rothbart always develops relationships between individuals and
between people and objects. In his recent collaborative performance
work, participants animate his theater of life and culture through
interaction with vessels. In the popular imagination his vessels
become ever-changing signifiers that shape cultural identities and
embody spiritual aspirations and emotional longings.
For “Les jeux sont faits" at the Lab Gallery, he explores forms related
to the theme of chance and indeterminacy. Likening artists to
gamblers, with a common penchant for risk-taking and gaming,
Rothbart exhibits sculptural objects derived from the shape of
Fortune’s Wheel. These wall pieces also share kindred elements with
the world of nature, hearkening back to the theme of branching
present in the artists sculpture in aluminum. Projected on the wall is a
video loop from the "Meditation/Mediation" series that was realized in
France this March. It depicts Fortune, personified as a woman, casting
dice from a vessel sculpture and descending a Belle Epoque staircase.
Two concepts are juxtaposed in this video work. Meditation seems the
opposite of mediation. The goal of meditation, however, could be
characterized as attaining a state of inner peace. In
"Meditation/Mediation," this is realized through a process of mediation
between the body and the spirit.
Enrico Pedrini, Curator.
The Roger Smith Lab Gallery is a project based exhibition space located in one of the
liveliest business sections of New York City. Sponsored by The Roger Smith Hotel, The Lab is
a high traffic, fast paced, converted "storefront" that features conceptual work and
provides a venue for experimental national and international artists and curators and
their ideas. The Lab Gallery specializes in ten-day exhibitions. For more information, call
212-339-2092, or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com.
Matthew Semler, Artistic Director.
D. Dominick Lombardi, Curatorial Advisor.
Opening: 25 May 2006
The Lab Gallery
The Roger Smith Hotel
501 Lexington Avenue at 48th Street - New York
Hours: 12 - 19