 © Kim Baranowski Apogee Kim Baranowski, Alison Collins, Mark Robinson, Katarina Wong "Apogee" focuses on recent sculpture, painting, photography and installation work that evokes extremes. Extremes appear formally and conceptually in these works, through processes of repetition, mutation, and recontextualization. The intensity and rigor of these processes gives these works a poetic density. The artists of "Apogee" incorporate baffling incongruities and astonishing material choices in their work. By examining and testing the limits of process and material, these artists stake their creative work at the apex of possible outcomes. Alison Collins site-specific installation, composed entirely of steel, will fill an entire room of the exhibition. This new work is comprised of three components: drawings made using steel wool, architecturally styled steel rod frames, and human-size steel nests. Imagery of bergerettes, dead rabbits, ribbons and fruit will fill this ambitious installation. Mark Robinson's "Shame" dramatically uses the object of ongoing global violence and rhetoric: oil. Measuring six feet by six feet, this kinetic wall piece continuously recycles a finite supply of oil in an infinite cascade of moving oil. Katarina Wong's monochromatic paintings are composed using multiple layers of traditional Chinese -more- painting techniques and hand sanding. The resulting metallic surfaces are the outcome of a meditative process including over a dozen hand-painted and hand-sanded layers of paint. Kim Baranowski's recent prints and photographs reinterpret nature imagery through recontextualization and intervention. Her "Memento Mori" series of color photographs superimpose dead animals and insects over National Geographic imagery, and obliquely comment on the artificiality of representations of nature. Similarly, her "Replications" prints mutate and replicate animals and animal parts to disturbing and lyrical effect. Through site-specific installation, staged photography, and meditative acts of painting, the artists of "Apogee" test the limitations of their respective media, This is made evident through the processes they engage in to produce their work. These artists adopt a rigorous attitude towards process and material. By not accepting formal and conceptual limitations they push beyond and transcend the work's extremes through unorthodox materials, unconventional subject matter, and idiosyncratic processes. Such striving and rigor positions these works at the upper extremes-or apogee-of creative investigation. Curated by Jonathan Allen. This program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, Bronx Council on the Arts/Cultural Venture Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (and it's Material for the Arts program), Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council, and US Congressman José E. Serrano's WCS-NOAA Lower Bronx River Partnership. BRAC is also a member of The New York State Multi-Arts Centers consortium which receives funds from NYSCA and The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation. Foundation support is provided by New York Community Trust, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Center for Arts Education with funds from the Annenberg Foundation, and The Helena Rubinstein Foundation. This program is also made possible with funds from the Ford Foundation through the Bronx Council on the Arts. Exhibition: May 8 - June 12, 2004 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 3 pm - 6:30 pm, Sat Noon - 5 pm The Bronx River Art Center 1087 East Tremont Ave. USA-Bronx, NY 10460 Telephone +718 589.5819 Fax +718 860.8303 Email info@bronxriverart.org www.bronxriverart.org |
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