Inside of Leandro Erlich's Swimming PoolIn the NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith show :
-A swell of piano keys like plucked teeth growing out from a goddess figure in the corner with a black ship at its peak
-funeral barges (complete with caped taxidermy, and tiny boats for stacks of cigarettes) pulling away from a pair of shadows on the wall
-a circle like that of candles, except with fluorescent coils
-A room, I smelled it first: lavender, of "Curandera's Botanica" with tables and shelves of bottles and jars, and the floor swept with lavender and glitter into the corners. And incredibly cold. The guard, oddly repeating in a reedy voice to the spectators "very cold in there" I see the red beads of a rosary peeking out of his black security t-shirt. Is this offensive to the religious? Can religious practice stand alone as art? Maybe not.
Finally, on the third floor, Stealth Distortion (...must have seen it in some teenage wet dream). The last room I visit has a sign posted as it being potentially offensive. There are bright rows of LED lights that you must walk around to get into the first chamber. It is dark, and behind are a row of television tubes without box frames displaying a variety of startup/waiting animations from computer programs, the wall behind a three-dimensional pattern that led me to say to myself, "okay, I understand, I am reduced to bits and bytes." All this with a droning and grinding soundtrack. A smaller room to the left with rows of yellowed fluorescent bulbs and a wall tiled in black mirror. I look close and can not see my own reflection. The bulbs are giving off heat. A guard walks through a doorway on the opposite corner that I don't think I had even noticed despite it being a very small room. It has that clear vinyl stripping like from coolers hanging down. I feel separate from myself and this space. I walk through, into a large room, with high ceilings, and feels like a laboratory. I gasp - There is a giant reclining taxidermied unicorn in a large display box. Holy of holies! But if you walk in front of it the glass at the center the frosting renders it invisible. All the rooms are one work, one installation piece by a Norwegian artist, Borre Saethre, exhibiting in the US for the first time.
-A swell of piano keys like plucked teeth growing out from a goddess figure in the corner with a black ship at its peak
-funeral barges (complete with caped taxidermy, and tiny boats for stacks of cigarettes) pulling away from a pair of shadows on the wall
-a circle like that of candles, except with fluorescent coils
-A room, I smelled it first: lavender, of "Curandera's Botanica" with tables and shelves of bottles and jars, and the floor swept with lavender and glitter into the corners. And incredibly cold. The guard, oddly repeating in a reedy voice to the spectators "very cold in there" I see the red beads of a rosary peeking out of his black security t-shirt. Is this offensive to the religious? Can religious practice stand alone as art? Maybe not.
Finally, on the third floor, Stealth Distortion (...must have seen it in some teenage wet dream). The last room I visit has a sign posted as it being potentially offensive. There are bright rows of LED lights that you must walk around to get into the first chamber. It is dark, and behind are a row of television tubes without box frames displaying a variety of startup/waiting animations from computer programs, the wall behind a three-dimensional pattern that led me to say to myself, "okay, I understand, I am reduced to bits and bytes." All this with a droning and grinding soundtrack. A smaller room to the left with rows of yellowed fluorescent bulbs and a wall tiled in black mirror. I look close and can not see my own reflection. The bulbs are giving off heat. A guard walks through a doorway on the opposite corner that I don't think I had even noticed despite it being a very small room. It has that clear vinyl stripping like from coolers hanging down. I feel separate from myself and this space. I walk through, into a large room, with high ceilings, and feels like a laboratory. I gasp - There is a giant reclining taxidermied unicorn in a large display box. Holy of holies! But if you walk in front of it the glass at the center the frosting renders it invisible. All the rooms are one work, one installation piece by a Norwegian artist, Borre Saethre, exhibiting in the US for the first time.
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