The work of artist Adel Abdessemed is at once direct and poetic. He often uses common imagery and objects as a point of departure. However, the mundane beginnings of these objects only further underscore the weighty nature of his art. Abdessemed’s installations are able to provoke a sudden impact of its viewer. Still, the installations communicate complex ideas that unfold over extended viewing. At times controversial, his work is effective in piquing thought and discussion.
Artist and designer Fabrice Le Nezet‘s series Measure precariously positions concrete blocks. Using metal tubing, Le Nezet supports the concrete in way that makes the industrial materials seem nearly organic. The brightly colored pipes cling to the concrete like webs. His intention with the work was to make the materials and its weight easily felt. He says:
“I worked here on a physical representation of the idea of measure. The objective was to ‘materialize’ tension in a sense, to make the notions of weight, distance and angle palpable…This work lies in the context of my search for purification around raw materials such as concrete and metal. This is why I played with simple shapes which catch light and transcend the volume structure.”
Anya Gallaccio‘s installation Red on Green may leave elicit a different reaction depending on when you catch the show. Gallaccio plucked the heads of 10,000 roses and arranged them into large neat rectangle. At first the installation may resemble a grand romantic gesture. However, Gallaccio’s interest is piqued by what the installation becomes. In a way Red on Green turns into a type of natural performance as the field of red shifts to brown. She utilizes the loaded symbol of the rose as a starting point for investigating the natural processes of death and decay.
The audiovisual installation titled Isotope v.2 was created Nonotak – an art duo made up of Noemi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto. Light projections are projected on and through a box approximately thirteen feet on each side. Accompanied by sound the projection begins rather subdued. Low drones match lights moving and changing slowly. Soon, however, the light and sound seems to quicken its pace, become glitchy, even aggressive. Watch the video after the jump to see the Isotope v.2 in action. The installation is a reference and response to Fukushima and its now infamous power plant. Following the tragic 2011 earthquake control over the Fukushima power plant quickly deteriorated. Using this as a metaphor for the human relationship with nuclear energy, the installation creates a type of immaterial prison. Walls of light surround the visitors becoming ever more imposing as the projection progresses.
This installation by artist Soo Sunny Park is appropriately titled Unwoven Light. Several sections of chain link fence have been connected and draped throughout the gallery. The wave-like sections of fence are filled with small pieces of Plexiglas. Light from the galleries many lamps and the sun at various angles fall through the glass projecting a multicolored pattern more impressive than the installation itself. Park uses the light as a medium, unfurling from the fence and fully splayed on every gallery surface. [via]
There is something especially frightening about Lara Mezzapelle and Giacomo Deriu‘s sculpture, Dirittura d’Arrivo. The sculpture freezes the moment a plane rips in half, about to plunge from the sky. All of the ensuing chaos – panicking passengers, flying luggage, mangled metal – is caught completely and eerily in white. A fear of flying has been a common modern phobia. However, as critic Olivia Spatola points out, a plane crash in a post 9/11 world reflects the more modern fear of a new kind of violence. In a way Mezzapelle and Deriu capture this modern fear in their medium and process. The sculpture is planned using 3D modeling software, and cut from nylon using prototyping lasers.
Strainers are tools not often seen outside of the kitchen, much less in the art studio. However, artist Isaac Cordal puts them to use in a series of street installations titled Cement Bleak. For the series Cordal sculpts human faces into the mesh of the hand held strainers. The strainers are then inserted into the ground. Sunlight or streetlights pass through the strainers and project a shadow portrait onto the sidewalk. The nature of strainer’s mesh allows for a strangely realistic face from several angles of light.
Pool, The Alchemy of Blue by Australian artist Lizzie Buckmaster Dove poetically celebrates the relationship between the moon and the ocean. The stone-like pieces found in these images are the remnants of swimming pool found near the ocean in Dove’s hometown of Coledale. The nearby ocean was slowly destroying the pool with each tide. The two installations pictured here are a kind of homage to the powerful force of the moon on the ocean below. She constructed the circles below with her friends to coincide with the lunar cycle. One arrangement featured the concrete fragment’s blue hued side facing up for the corresponding blue moon. Dove and her friends organized an empty circle with the concrete at its perimeter for another arrangement to coincide with the new moon. [via]
