About Wave Farm
Spectral Evidence
Jan 17, 2007 - Mar 03, 2007
The Rotunda Gallery
33 Clinton St. | Brooklyn, NY 11201 | 718-875-4047
http://www.rotundagallery.org/rotunda/exhibitions.asp
Artists: Terry Adkins, Walead Beshty, Mary Billyou, Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson, Chitra Ganesh and Mariam Ghani, Jill Godmilow, Olen Hsu, Simon Leung, Lin + Lam, Conor McGrady, Sreshta Premnath, Elaine Reichek.
Following the temporal condition of the ghost, the works in Spectral Evidence operate like a haunted return. The artists utilize history as material, re-imagining the future by haunting the present. Curator Steven Lam is the 2006 recipient of the Lori Ledis Memorial Award for the Curatorial Initiative. Brooklyn, NY (Dec. 13, 2006) The term, spectral evidence was first legally recognized during the Salem Witch Trials. In the proceedings, accusers testified that witches possessed and terrorized them in their sleep. Chief Justice William Stoughton, known at that time more for his witch-hunting practices than for his juridical duties, expanded the law to admit hearsay, unofficial stories, and gossip as proper material evidence.
The exhibition Spectral Evidence presents works of art that actualize the immaterial, unpacking it ideologically and aesthetically. The artists included stem from various generations and backgrounds, but together they exemplify specific aesthetic strategies of reviving historical documents in an effort to return to a moment of historical clarity.
If contemporary society is plagued with phantasms and the notion of the present seems farther away than the distant past, what is our relationship to memory, temporality, and political agency? When ones understanding of the present has become entirely mediated and controlled (i.e. the digitization of all information from E-bay to genetic ancestry restructuring perceptions about space and time; revisionists manipulating historical documents to lay claims of authentic origins; official memorial culture dictating moments of collective mourning), then time seems to have flattened into a perpetual present. In this era of bio-cybernetic digital reproduction, knowledge runs in an eternal loop.
The artists in this exhibition are fully cognizant of this paradox and therefore utilize history as material, creating temporal ruptures. Billyous project 1-9 appropriates turn-of-the century scientific photographs of epileptic seizures. Like Billyou, Beshty, Davidson and Dubbin, and Premnath engage in the prehistory of spectacle and its relationship with image and belief. Lin + Lam and Ganesh and Ghani unpack the aftermath of war, state violence, and its relationship with nationalism and empire.
Excavating the recent past, Adkins mines W.E.B. Duboiss FBI files and his radical legacy as both a historian and propagandist; Godmilow screens the influential meta-documentary, What Farocki Taught, a frame-by-frame replica of Harun Farockis 1969 documentary on the origin of napalm.
Dealing with obsolescence and loss, Hsu, Leung, McGrady, and Reichek address the body and the archive. By disrupting how subjects are classified they in return reveal how systems reinforce subjectivity. Both Leung and Reichek will revisit an earlier body of work in an effort to widen the contextual frame of the exhibition.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a sound performance and screening addressing revolutionary time and aural history by Adkins, Godmilow, Hsu, and others will be held at BRICstudio (57 Rockwell Place, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn) on Feb. 7 at 8:30. For reservations, please call 718 875.4047.
Steven Lam is a research-based artist working in performance, video, sculpture, net-art, and writing. His recent turn to organizing exhibitions has become an extension of his artistic practice. Lams art work has recently been included in exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Eyebeam, NY; Art Interactive, MA; Diverseworks, TX; and Tyler School of Art, PA; He is the 2006 recipient of the Lori Ledis Memorial Award as part of Rotundas Curatorial Initiative Program, which fosters emerging curatorial talent.
The Rotunda Gallery, a contemporary art exhibition space, presents contemporary art, public events and an innovative arts education program. The Gallerys aim is to increase the visibility and accessibility of contemporary art while bridging the gap between the art world and global culture in Brooklyn and the world beyond. The Rotunda Gallery is the visual arts program of BRIC/Brooklyn Information & Culture, which presents media, performing and visual arts programming reflective of Brooklyns diverse communities. Located in Brooklyn Heights, just over the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, the Gallery is a short walk from the 2,3; 4,5; M; or R trains at Court Street/Borough Hall; or the A, C trains at High Street. The Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 12 to 6 pm.
Following the temporal condition of the ghost, the works in Spectral Evidence operate like a haunted return. The artists utilize history as material, re-imagining the future by haunting the present. Curator Steven Lam is the 2006 recipient of the Lori Ledis Memorial Award for the Curatorial Initiative. Brooklyn, NY (Dec. 13, 2006) The term, spectral evidence was first legally recognized during the Salem Witch Trials. In the proceedings, accusers testified that witches possessed and terrorized them in their sleep. Chief Justice William Stoughton, known at that time more for his witch-hunting practices than for his juridical duties, expanded the law to admit hearsay, unofficial stories, and gossip as proper material evidence.
The exhibition Spectral Evidence presents works of art that actualize the immaterial, unpacking it ideologically and aesthetically. The artists included stem from various generations and backgrounds, but together they exemplify specific aesthetic strategies of reviving historical documents in an effort to return to a moment of historical clarity.
If contemporary society is plagued with phantasms and the notion of the present seems farther away than the distant past, what is our relationship to memory, temporality, and political agency? When ones understanding of the present has become entirely mediated and controlled (i.e. the digitization of all information from E-bay to genetic ancestry restructuring perceptions about space and time; revisionists manipulating historical documents to lay claims of authentic origins; official memorial culture dictating moments of collective mourning), then time seems to have flattened into a perpetual present. In this era of bio-cybernetic digital reproduction, knowledge runs in an eternal loop.
The artists in this exhibition are fully cognizant of this paradox and therefore utilize history as material, creating temporal ruptures. Billyous project 1-9 appropriates turn-of-the century scientific photographs of epileptic seizures. Like Billyou, Beshty, Davidson and Dubbin, and Premnath engage in the prehistory of spectacle and its relationship with image and belief. Lin + Lam and Ganesh and Ghani unpack the aftermath of war, state violence, and its relationship with nationalism and empire.
Excavating the recent past, Adkins mines W.E.B. Duboiss FBI files and his radical legacy as both a historian and propagandist; Godmilow screens the influential meta-documentary, What Farocki Taught, a frame-by-frame replica of Harun Farockis 1969 documentary on the origin of napalm.
Dealing with obsolescence and loss, Hsu, Leung, McGrady, and Reichek address the body and the archive. By disrupting how subjects are classified they in return reveal how systems reinforce subjectivity. Both Leung and Reichek will revisit an earlier body of work in an effort to widen the contextual frame of the exhibition.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a sound performance and screening addressing revolutionary time and aural history by Adkins, Godmilow, Hsu, and others will be held at BRICstudio (57 Rockwell Place, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn) on Feb. 7 at 8:30. For reservations, please call 718 875.4047.
Steven Lam is a research-based artist working in performance, video, sculpture, net-art, and writing. His recent turn to organizing exhibitions has become an extension of his artistic practice. Lams art work has recently been included in exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Eyebeam, NY; Art Interactive, MA; Diverseworks, TX; and Tyler School of Art, PA; He is the 2006 recipient of the Lori Ledis Memorial Award as part of Rotundas Curatorial Initiative Program, which fosters emerging curatorial talent.
The Rotunda Gallery, a contemporary art exhibition space, presents contemporary art, public events and an innovative arts education program. The Gallerys aim is to increase the visibility and accessibility of contemporary art while bridging the gap between the art world and global culture in Brooklyn and the world beyond. The Rotunda Gallery is the visual arts program of BRIC/Brooklyn Information & Culture, which presents media, performing and visual arts programming reflective of Brooklyns diverse communities. Located in Brooklyn Heights, just over the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, the Gallery is a short walk from the 2,3; 4,5; M; or R trains at Court Street/Borough Hall; or the A, C trains at High Street. The Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 12 to 6 pm.