| Exhibition from October 2nd to
October 20th 2007 Opening Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 (5pm-7pm) |
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sergent
(FRANCE)It begins with a chainsaw in my hands. To cut down the chosen tree on foot, and after having squared it off using a rabot, always tend to it with my 'formidable machine' in my workshop located in the heart of the countryside. I try to work the trunk as naturally as possible, and I hope this stands true after having pruned it. To put into words- still uncouth, rough, strong and delicate at the same time. That way my raw lumber could play with the day, with the light stroking or infiltrating in the cuts, exposing its heart and fibers. When a new sculpture can lastly hold itself straight, vertically, it is like a link, a hymn raising from the Earth to the Sky, of "Changing Woman to Sun Bearer ", then...everything is fine !
BULL
(UNITED STATES)In this exhibition I have included etchings (on handmade paper), and relief paintings (Italian plaster, mixed media on canvas). The etchings preceded the relief paintings, and to a large degree form a relationship with them. The paintings are comprised of drapery (muslin and Italian plaster) and borrow their central image from two traditions: ancient Classical sculpture and Renaissance painting and sculpture. In particular, I am drawn to how, in both traditions, the form of the human body is portrayed as lying beneath voluminous swaths of fabric. This image becomes a metaphor on many levels, as it stands for what lies hidden, and in the psychological realm-as yet unconscious. I have chosen to call the painting series "Dark Matter", so named by scientists for the vast unknown and largely unknowable regions of our universe- as a metaphor for all that confounds us in our human life. My quixotic response is to delve into the mystery through art, to venture towards: "Why are we here, what is our purpose?" Why do we fail in the simplest things such as loving each other and avoiding the atrocity of war?
diani
(ITALY)Diani's hand-drawn depictions capture the complexity of one of the oldest and one of the most beloved and fragile cities in Europe. He makes it his task to depict his memories of the city he grew up in as a child and became an artist (the youngest one in Peggy Guggenheim collection), with what appears to be a dry and analytical exactitude on the one hand, and on the other, a deeply subjective encapsulation of Venice's liquid environs. What is poetically poignant with this imagery is its ambivalence and tenuousness. The Venice of Diani is the small alleyways, side streets and tiny interstitial canals that are part of everyday life of an inhabitant, rather than the routine of the tourist. Based on photographic imagery, Diani's transcriptions are lovingly detailed sight-bites of private working-class Venetian spaces, devoid of ostentation, sumptuousness, opulence and (importantly) color. The city of light has become, for Diani, an emptied artifact of time past. The results are thought-provoking and insightful visual manifestations, longing to recuperate some part of the past to offset an essential lack. That lack, as we can see through Diani's efforts, is not all negative; through it, internal drives are put into play that in turn infuse the world with vitality.
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