Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present The Arctic Trilogy, our
first solo exhibition by New York artist Janet Biggs. Over the
past two years, Biggs has traveled to Svalbard, a group of islands between the
top of Europe and the North Pole. Filming in extreme conditions in one of the
most remote and least-forgiving places in the world, Biggs has created three
stunning videos in exploring longing, mortality, and our futile fight against
nature.
The first of the videos, Fade to White, deals with the unachievable
desire of discovery on an already exploited planet. Traveling aboard a
100-year-old, two-masted schooner in the Arctic, Biggs filmed a member of the
crew as he navigated the sailing ship through iceberg filled seas and paddled a
kayak past glacier walls and polar bears. Testing her own will and endurance in
this harsh environment, she captured a landscape of uncompromising imagery. Loss
and change are implicit in the work’s title, Fade to White, which
can refer to an editing technique used to evoke death or transcendence. Biggs
integrated her Arctic imagery with video of countertenor John Kelly, whose age,
androgyny, and mournful operatic voice parallel the vanishing Arctic landscape
and signal the waning of male
dominance.
In the second work, In the Cold Edge, Biggs delves more deeply into
the issues of isolation and vulnerability. In filming this piece, Biggs followed
the video’s subject deep into a beautiful yet terrifying ice cave. The
viewer can feel the massive weight of the ice above in the dangerous and
claustrophobic tunnels. Shimmering stalactites and gravity-defying ice
formations, lit only by the explorers’ headlamps, generate a dual sense of
awe and intimidation. The relief felt by the viewer as the explorer emerges into
the open Arctic space is quickly quelled, though, as the reality of the
landscape’s vast emptiness begins to seep in. In the Cold Edge
ends with Biggs herself shooting a flare into the vast Arctic sky, both an act
of aggressive assertion and a cry for help with absolutely no one to hear
it.
In the last work of the trilogy, Brightness All Around, Biggs brings
the viewer back to an inspiring determination to define and defend one’s
identity in perhaps the Earth’s most extreme environment. The video
focuses on Linda Norberg, a woman coal miner working in a very inaccessible and
dangerous place. Norberg begins each day by descending miles into the darkness
beneath the frozen Arctic. Surrounded by deafening machinery, relying on her
small headlamp for light, she is seen drilling and bolting the newly excavated
cave ceiling in freezing temperatures and relentless darkness. Serving as a
counterpoint to the terror of the underground is a vocal performance by New York
music guru Bill Coleman. As an isolated performer, Coleman is sexual, seductive,
and a bit threatening. Using lyrics taken from near death experiences, Coleman
becomes a witness to the struggle to maintain a self of
sense.
Janet Biggs received her undergraduate degree from Moore College of Art,
and pursued graduate studies at Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been
exhibited, among other institutions, at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,
Ithaca, NY; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Gibbes Museum of Art, South
Carolina; Rhode Island School of Design Museum; Vantaa Art Museum, Finland;
Linkopings Konsthall, Passagen, Sweden; the Oberosterreichisches Landesmuseum,
Austria; and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia. Reviews
of her work have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, ArtForum,
ARTNews, Art in America, Flash Art, Artnet.com, and many others.
Janet
Biggs
