Hello hello! If you're in NYC come to the 'CITY' opening tonight at the Bridge Gallery at 98 Orchard St just south of Delancey.
Opening 6-8p Wed DEC 21st... followed by a trip to my bar, Baby Grand, to celebrate the art of Serban Ionescu who is showing work in 'CITY' and debuting EMERSON ON GRAND ST (written, drawn and sculpted works) at the Baby Gallery.

I'll have 6 (mostly tape drawn) pieces representing SF, NYC and LDN in a group show with other artist/architects. The Bridge Gallery actually specializes in my type of creatives- I've found my tribe.

Show will be up through January, let me know if you pop in. Happy Holidays!

Good news!



I've long been a fan of THE LAB Performance + Installation Art Gallery at the base of the Roger Smith Hotel. So few places are dedicated the these ephemeral arts, yet here they do it with panache- two large windows on a busy corner and they document each event with a perfect piece of video. KUDOS!

I'm pleased to announce that a certain large and shiny installation will be gracing the prominent Lexington Ave gallery this time next year. "Camero(o)n's Line" will be up December 2012 and will be the first of their fast paced installations to span two months. The winter setting will suit it perfectly.


More:

My proposal "Camero(o)n's Line" is inspired by a dramatic geological event that occurred 440 million years ago yet profoundly influences modern New York City. The Cameron's Line fault stretches up from Staten Island along the east side of Manhattan and into Connecticut. It denotes the remaining ridge created by the collision between volcanic islands off of modern Portugal and our continental edge that pushed what became Brooklyn up from the depths of the ocean. While Brooklyn's soft ocean soil holds only modest buildings, the ancient bedrock beneath Manhattan supports a towering skyline.

During the prolonged violence of the Taconic Orogeny, Cameron's Line was folded and eroded several times, so I propose folding large sheets of reflective mylar into a striated sculpture. Creased panels cascade from floor to ceiling along the north wall dramatically intertwining with a vertical twist in the center of the space. The floor is covered in more mylar laid flat and printed with patterns reminiscent of geological formations. Tiny fishing lines radiate toward the ceiling to lend structural support and trace the trajectories of the geometry. Reflections from the floor, the diamond prisms of the origami and the pulse of the city outside will dance across the remaining white surfaces of the gallery.

In this case, the act of folding is also an expression of transformation. The material is thoroughly modern and will be animated in the vernacular of midtown, reflections. The effect also resembles diamonds or crystalline structures (likewise products of geological pressure) emerging from the gallery. The title's play on words is a nod to the huge diamond deposits recently discovered in Cameroon and is a reminder that modern life (and luxury) remain shaped by events inconceivable in scale and historical distance.

study model:


fantastic little videos here

My installation proposal for Wave Hill in the Bronx has been selected as one of the top ten and I should find out by the end of the month if I make the final five. The piece tells the story of pollen + Brownian motion. More on that later.


Wave Hill is an phenomenal botanical garden + cultural center in the Bronx, a perfect escape from the city. They have hosted a great number of artists I really admire in the past and I'm honored to have had their curators in my little studio.

CONCEPT:
Pollen is the unsung hero of the botanical world, most often associated with allergies. I'd like to celebrate its quiet contribution to the natural world, its compelling mathematical shape and its place in the history of science. At first blush the installation might strike one as a cheerful field of layered yellow patterns, where one can't quite perceive the boundaries between what is happening inside vs out. However, the longer one engages, the more there is to see.

I call such a work a "narrative pattern" because it also summons the story of how Brownian Motion, pervasively analyzed in the world of finance, was initially discovered via studies by Robert Brown, the botanist. Einstein himself first drafted the "random walk formula" based on Brown's observations on the movement of pollen through water contained in a clear glass jar. In this case, the room becomes the clear jar with a 3D line drawing gingerly jumping across the walls, windows and shadows on the floor. I'm fascinated with the idea of treating the room as a microscope magnifying the invisible forces of the natural and scientific worlds.