In New York, an unusual number of video works and installations in darkness. The art selected for this week’s “I Magnifici 9” is staged without lights and is mostly investigative and scenographic.
(all pictures below)
A technological reinterpretation of Dante’s Inferno at Nicole Klagsbrun. Marco Brambilla offers a spectacular opportunity of seeing the evolution of humanity in 3D. In his latest work, Creation (2012) he completes his trilogy Megaplex, started in 2008. Through the special glasses, the spectator is brought to participate to a stage of images and sound that evolve along a giant rotating trajectory, from the Big-Bang to the total implosion in order to restart as a tiny and insignificant point in outerspace.
A magic atmosphere, nearly gloomy. “There are stars exploding around you, and there is nothing, nothing you can do…” A mantra that reminds us of the singularity of our planet. At Luhring Augustine Gallery the latest videowork by Ragnar Kjartansson is staged: 9 mega-screens, 13 speakers, 270 electric cable to stage The Visitors. On every screen is displayed the performance of one musician. The contemporary streaming of the single videos creates a concert that leaves us short of breath. The artist, lying down in the bathtub, conducts the orchestra, repeating in trance always the same sentence, sometimes in a happy mood, sometimes tragically , but anyway simply bewitching us.
There is a new Fontchamp! Again a surprise at Ho Gallery. As Fontana did, Hyungsub Shin explores in his works the space behind and in front of the art work. At the same time he remembers us of the Large Glass by Marcel Duchamp. Even if they seem to be drilled by a gun, they are actually diligently tampered by the artist’s lancet reaching an apparent destruction that reorganizes in an aesthetic way the meaning of the material itself.
Disco fever. The Asynchronous Coma is the title of the solo show of Gary Pennock. The AC Institute decided to switch of the lights too. A nocturne atmosphere in the gallery. While one of the spaces hosts a curtain/screen, slowly moving, creating potentially therapeutic events, in the next room is staged an abstract video made of fluctuating pixel that creates a kind of imaginary carsickness. Two artworks that confirm the capacity of Pennock to tune temporary compositions in our audio/visual senses.
Six pack for Fuji. More than a show, a big party to celebrate Photography, a group show of the Six Big of Contemporary Photography: William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, Ryan McGinley, Martin Parr, Terry Richardson and Stephen Shore. Six new photographic series realized with the same tool: The curator Ken Miller challenged the artists to use a FujiFilm Camera (XSeries). Although the technical limit, the outcome is a huge success: each artist maintained his own philosophy. The young photographers of tomorrow are smalltalking and New York’s high society of the visual arts is not missing.
From wax to resin. 3D prints continue to conquer the art world. Heather Dewey-Hagborg played a little bit CSI collecting genetic material through the city center of Manhattan and analyzing it, then reinventing creatively the presumed “owners”. While the research and the technological results are remarkable, we may doubt the artistic virtue, but what becomes clear is that the wax cabinet of Madame Tussaud can pack up soon…
Frightening… The white puddle stands out like an Icelandic geyser basin in the middle of the Gallery. A tropical/hitchcockian atmosphere made of water dropping from the ceiling like a drummer…. then a crescendo that culminates in a furious cascade ending up with a mystic silence. This is Sonic Fountain @ 303 Gallery, work by Doug Aitken that imposes upon the other artworks of the exhibition, like a caramel fountain, an ironic tautology of the art in a moment of crisis, a xylophone-table for bored guests and different wall installations which are less scenographic.
Tag it! The most alternative event of the week is definitely the solo show of the artist couple How&Nosm @ Jonathan Levine Gallery. The line of fans exceeded 260 feet , then a mass of other people. Based on Coconut Water and Le Perrier, Late Confessions stages some of the latest murals in Guernica style and two site specific installations which lines out their technical growth and artistic development. Two rooms of this temporary space have been transformed into hideouts hosting their secrets of mural painting and a series of artist’s books. Thank you guys!
Theatre and art. A performance in the dark dedicated to the latest painting works of Christine Gray opened at RARE Gallery. Inspired by the recumbent stone circles and ancient architecture of early civilizations we see a theatrical performance in which the performers stage a fairy-like and surrealistic piece.
This article has been published on Artribune .
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