RECONSTRUCT
Salena Gallery, Long Island University, 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn, NY, 11201
Opening Reception: Tue, April 4th, 6-8PM
Exhibition Dates: April 3rd- April 28th
Artists: David Baskin, Rodney Ewing, Lawrence Mesich, Sylvia Schwartz,
Brett Wallace, Elizabeth Riley, Simona Prives, Michal Gavish, and Etty Yaniv.
Curated by: Michal Gavish and Etty Yaniv
Reconstruct, the new group exhibition at the Salena Gallery of Long Island University emanates from its location at the revamping district of downtown Brooklyn. Fully visible from the outside through large glass panes, the exhibition is placed at the intersection between public and private domains, where the artworks are concerned with the urban changes of the surrounding city. Through its location, transparency, and passageway structure, the exhibition functions as an agora, a meeting point for ideas on urban life in a changing political landscape. In this space the artists relate to urgent subjects, such as consumerism, gentrification, architecture, and race through a diverse range of media, including installation, animation, photography and painting, aiming to open a dialogue on diverse aspects of changes in the fabric of the city.
David Baskin draws upon art historical models to address contemporary issues. His current sculptures reference 17th Century Dutch Vanitas painting as a means to examine the still life in relation to today’s consumer culture.
Rodeny Ewing examines Afro American narratives. In Rituals of Water he explores the impact of water on the African American Diaspora. In Fact and Fiction (Pugilist-Emile Griffith) he creates new narratives for marginalized individuals.
Lawrence Mesich examines the 2004 rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn. In his digitally manipulated photograph series, Highest and Best Use, he extends the facade of residential towers that broke the current height record for the borough.
Simona Prives creates still and moving collages that focus on the process of decomposition and reconstruction, the dialectic of growth and decay, that examine our complex relationship between the organic and the man-made.
Elizabeth Riley’s installation racks act as “flats” on wheels. They are made from draped fabric inkjet-printed with multicolored video stills of a city growing and changing, as well as in transition from a material city to a digital city.
Sylvia Schwartz uses Aqua resin molds and Plexiglas to create Meet me at the Carousel, an installation which resonates both architectural forms and fossilized organisms.
Brett Wallace’s work appropriates corporate language to question where art meets technology in urban culture. Through a self-created startup, Amazing, he explores the future of labor in technological change.
Michal Gavish uses her scientific background to examine the similar symmetries of growth and decay in urban landscapes and in natural crystalline geometries.
Etty Yaniv’s installation is made of discarded materials, which altogether coalesce into a long horizontal landscape where city and nature intersect, and upon a closer look reveals hidden narratives.