What is it?
Those were the first words we uttered entering Ronald Feldman Gallery in SoHo, for and exhibition of works by Tavares Strachan. There were already several people rooted before the luminous vertical rectangle in the center of the spacious room, equally bemused and bedazzled.
The work, titled “Components for Absolute Symbiosis” , is a reconstruction in delicate, flowing glass tubes of the arteries of the human body, suspended in 300 gallons of mineral oil calculated to make the glass virtually disappear, mesmerizing the viewer with its brief moments of reflection and materialization. All in all, this 1.5 ton piece housed in Plexiglas functions on all levels as an eye-popping, mind-bending collaboration of scientific fact and artistic inspiration.
Tavares Strachan
Cloud Chamber detail
from Glo-Our Rain Maker, 2006
New York City water, New York city dust,
mechanical componenets, computer glass
installation: variable dimensions
cloud chamber: 11 1/2 inches (approximate diameter
Tavares Strachan
Installation of Glo-Our Rainmaker
and Cloud Chamber Series 1, 2006
Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Gallery
Tavares Strachan
Cumulonimbus (calvus) from
Cloud Chamber Series 1, 2006
1 of 30 photographs mounted on a lightbox
12 x 9 3/4 inches
edition of 3
Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Gallery
Strahchan’s other piece at the gallery, “Glo - Our Rain Maker,” occupies the inner room . The main attraction is a suspended glass globe, called the Cloud Chamber, in which the process of cloud formation is replicated in microcosm, in a repeating cycle, using water and silica dust from New York City. Photographic images of various stages of the process in the chamber hang on light boxes on the surrounding walls, completing the installation. The show at Ronald Feldman runs through November 11th, two more of the artists major works are on view at Pierogi in Brooklyn through November 13th.
CHRIS TWOMEY
MADONNA SERIES
With her “Madonna Series,” artist Chris Twomey turns our attention to another intersection between science and the human form - DNA. Modeled after paintings of the Renaissance, the larger works features multiple images from Twomey’s photographic sessions with mother and babies. Intimate and radiant, they appear in these richly colored and texturally complex mixed-media pieces surrounded by intricate maps and sets of mutation numbers, which refer to the fact that each pair represents a specific Haplogroup (a set of genetic mutations which occurred during evolution and are used to define subgroups of human population).
The photographic images also appear with a more ethereal quality in prints and a DVD which, in Twomey’s own words “evoke the changes that occur through time and the briefness with which we are here in physical body. Whereas our DNA, suggesting immortality, goes on forever, mutating and changing.” Examples of both types are on view in her solo exhibition “Madonna Series” at Tribes Gallery in the East Village through November 30th, and “Madonna Series:Haplogroup B” can be seen in the exhibition “DIGI 06” at the New York Hall of Science through January 15th.
The nature of the universe itself is at the heart of an artist’s exploration on view at PS 1. John Latham spent the better part the past 50+ years creating works in a wide variety of media dealing the subject of cosmology. Prior to his death in January 2006, the British artist conceived the exhibition “Time Base and the Universe,” which surveys the major stages of his career. It will remain on view through January 8, 2007.
In the news this week, set apart from the violence and vitriolic spin that crowd our airwaves, an item from the world of science captured my imagination. The Hubble Telescope captures and transmits information and images about the universe that surrounds us in space and time, which we on Earth use to grow in our understanding of who and what and where we really are, aided by the art of the scientist and the vision of the artist. NASA has scheduled a shuttle mission specifically to maintain and upgrade the telescope, meaning it will remain functional until at least 2013. That concept in itself may well be a piece of art.
For information about NASA and the Hubble Telescope, visit http://hubble.nasa.gov
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