F_ll  in  the  bl_nk.
Curated by Shlomit Dror

June 21 – July 19, 2013

Opening Reception: Friday, June 21^st, 6-8 PM
 
Curator’s Talk: 7pm
Collaborative Performance: 7:30pm

The New York Art Residency and Studios (NARS) Foundation is delighted to announce the opening of F_ll in the bl_nk, a group exhibition curated by Shlmoit Dror,  winner of the 2013 NARS Emerging Curator Program Open Call.
 
The exhibition contains artworks whose visual and conceptual gaps evoke opposing elements of presence and absence. Fragmentation, disassembled forms and (in)visibility are core principles that the artists in the show convey through their creative process. Fragments shown in the artworks reference an experience from the past, a historical moment, a geographic location, a voyage or a situation. The absent section in the work, the “negative” space (that is the void which in fact references the presence of something that was there) becomes the main visual experience. The fragments and other elements that used to be part of a whole (which is now absent) have new meanings (detached from their origin) and hence are visibly dominant. The negative and empty spaces challenge the viewers’ expectations. Using our visual memory and archive, we find links to fill in these gaps, which are contingent on our past experiences and pre-conceived notions. The remnants existing in these works are linked to sources that cannot be retrieved, and as a result, these traces reclaim the original contexts (the source), and become the origin themselves.
 
Revealing only fractions of a structure, image or object, these oeuvres compellingly raise issues of memory, loss, destruction, disassembly, emptiness, temporality and infinity. Consequently, these works also create an interesting tension between the invisible and visible as well as between the corporeal and the cerebral. They invite us to consider which we are more likely to notice, things that are present or absent?
 
The idea of displacement and traces from the past (origin) comes through in many of the artworks in the show. These traces, which serve as evidence for something that is absent, become present. In other words, finding “presence in absence” means that the absence presents something that is not there, and as a result, that great abyss (the absence) becomes the prominent element, and therefore is still present. The artists in the show Keren Benbenisty, Liene Bosquê, Paul Clay, Ellie Krakow, Ann Oren and Lindsay Packer incorporate text, found objects and popular culture imagery from film and magazines, emphasizing the simultaneous encounters of absence and presence, fraction and whole, as well as reality and illusion. The works in the exhibition are both two and three-dimensional and include video, works on paper, sculpture and installation.

 

 

 

MEMBRANAS I - Peel it Off
 

Collaborative Performance by Coletivo Elástica (**U.S Premiere)
Created by Liene Bosquê & Mariana Costa
Performed by Isabella Gonçalves

June 21, 7:30pm

 

                                                                                                                           Photo: Joannis Moudatsos

 

Membranas I – Peel It Off is a performance by Coletivo Elástica that investigates the interactions between the body, visual arts and architecture. The material used in this performance, vinyl adhesive, is a choice inspired by its characteristics of skin. The performer interacts with the vinyl through body movements, and explores the material’s elasticity through actions of ungluing and overlaying. The thin layer of the vinyl, which resembles membranes, is removed gradually from the body and the local architecture. As the performance develops, tension between the body, material and space increases, while the body’s movements convey a sense of confinement. Both the body and the vinyl behave in a similar way, representing notions of strength and flexibility. 
 
In connection with the exhibition F_ll  in  the  bl_nk, this performance explores the physical attachment (and detachment) we experience in places we inhabit. At first, the performer is attached (or “glued”) to the wall with an adhesive material that covers not only her body, but also the wall she is leaning against. Consequently, the human body and the wall are inseparable, while the form of the body is almost invisible. This state of contact is followed by a slow detachment as the performer “peels” herself off the wall, leaving behind traces of vinyl. Like the Chameleon that changes its colors and adapts time and time again to a new environment, we too often experience displacement and dislocation, and consequently adapt to a new place. This camouflage and inseparability between our natural habitat and us is not always sustainable; we might be removed or remove ourselves from the place we initially came to inhabit.

 

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