Reflections on the work of contemporary artists
DECEMBER 6, 2021 BY ÁGNES BERECZ
Remote Work
“Open-ended, performative and fluid, the un/mute experiment evokes the transatlantic mail art projects of the 1960s and 1970s neo-avant-gardes and reimagines practices of collaboration in the realm of the digital and in defiance of the limitations of the global pandemic. The residencies, the exhibition and the project’s labyrinth-like website defy borders and physical distances as well as institutionally sanctioned forms of artistic labor to present the audience with a document of work and life in-progress.”
Thanks Art Spiel and Ágnes Berecz
/VIDEO STILL: Patricija Gilytė EQUINOX K-7392, 2019
Drawing on the universal concepts of the body, space, and time—as well as their limitations—Gilytė’s transformation of minimal and lo-tech processes ignite infinite connections inviting us to revisit memory and experience. -Daina Mattis
/Carl Lee’s Las House video installation view at ArtVilnius art fair 2020. Photo by Laura Zaveckaite
This year Undercurrent is delighted to introduce to ArtVilnius’s audience a significant work of a Buffalo-based American artist, Carl Lee. His three-channel video installation, Last House portrays the demolition, or to be more specific, the last 16 minutes of the demolition, of a hundred-year-old single-family house in Buffalo, NY. The demolition is interspersed with shots of the peaceful, dreamy interiors from Carl Lee’s own house. Last House is an abstract structure that recalls tragedies like Macbeth. Reality at some point becomes memory if it can achieve this kind of transformation, as memories have a greater chance to survive. Last House is a real-time vanitas installation where time slips by, surrendering our memory to change. Lee appropriately shows that with every end is a rebirth, which he leaves to our imagination. Lee’s piece reflects and comments upon the world’s current situation of uncertainty and drama. It additionally symbolically encapsulates what the American Dream–family, stability, values, home, work, and change–can mean.
The biggest art fair in the Eastern European region, ArtVilnius brings together contemporary emerging and established young artists and galleries. It has expanded over the years to become firmly established on the local and international art scene, now being visited by 23,000 people annually.
The project was partially sponsored by ArtVilnius Art Fair.
dART INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE /Gelah Penn: Uneasy Terms at Undercurrent by John Mendelsohn
/IMAGE: Stele drawings, installation view. Photo: Etienne Frossard.
Art is a form of telepathy, a download from mind to mind. It moves through an imperfect medium, whose noise may be the signal, and whose significance is encoded deep within the image. Beyond the drama of emotion or thrill of sensuality, finally it is a consciousness that shines through to us. – John Mendelsohn
/IMAGE: Notes on Clarissa (Volume I) Installation of 99 collages 2019. Exhibition cards, various synthetic materials. Various dimensions.
"Light and height were of great importance in constructing this space, because my work deals with visual ambiguity through the manipulation of many translucent and optical materials," Penn added.
/IMAGE: Prologue, site-responsive installation. Photo: Etienne Frossard
Gelah Penn’s work merges drawing and sculpture, incorporating unconventional lightweight materials such as Mylar, lenticular plastic, plastic garbage bags, and mosquito netting. She’s installing a 33-foot-long installation, titled Prologue, along the gallery entry stairway, and a 21-foot-long display of 99 collage works based on exhibition cards from her 2019 show at Odetta Chelsea. —Tanner West
Laura McGough, for Sculpture: “In an era when smartphones and tablets have become our optical devices du jour, but the veracity of the image itself has come under fire, Lee reminds us to be diligent spectators of our own past.” [PDF]
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[in Lithuanian] Jurgita Ludavičienė, for 7md: “Ta grynumo ir vidinio švarumo būsena, sukurta paprastomis priemonėmis – tušu ir spalvotais pigmentais, leidžia įkvėpti ir (žiūrovui) nuo spalvos bei formos vėl grįžti prie proto ir jausmo. Ir prie triukšmo. Nes ši paroda – tai savotiškas „SLA 307 Art Space“ atsisveikinimas su Manhatanu, su tuo pavidalu, kuris keletą metų leido lietuviškai kultūrai prisistatyti Niujorke ir kuris dabar keičiasi – persiformuoja, persigrupuoja, atsišakoja ir kaip povandeninė srovė nuteka į kitą Rytų upės pusę.”
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[In Lithuanian] Ainė Jacytė interviews Ieva Mediodia, Arvydas Žalpys, and Airida Rekštytė for Kauno Diena. Mediodia: “Nuosekliai vykdoma meno erdvės programa duoda puikių rezultatų: prestižiniai meno portalai Niujorke (‘Fabrik’, ‘New York New Work’, ‘Chelsea Gallery Map’, NYARTBEAT) tarp kurių ir internetinis meno ‘Artforum’, kurio dėmesį patraukti nėra lengva, įtraukė ‘SLA307’ programą į lankytinų vietų tiek niujorkiečiams, tiek turistams rekomendacijų sąrašus.”
Read moreSla307 is honored to announce our participation in ARTVILNIUS’18. Art Vilnius is an international contemporary art fair in its 9th year. It takes place in Congress Centre Litexpo, Vilnius, Lithuania, from June 7–10. Visit us at Hall 5 / 5.25.
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Hovey Brock, for Brooklyn Rail: “The artist and critic Marjorie Welish has compared Zapkus to James Joyce in his level of encyclopedic ambition. Indeed, looking at a Zapkus painting is much like reading a page of Finnegans Wake: each take lays a new set of meanings as the lines, dots, and polygons coalesce into an alternate constellation of references. However, there is another aspect of Joyce that deserves comparison, and that is his satirical edge.” [PDF]
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