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Two new exhibits opened this week in Chelsea dealing with themes of mourning, loss and searching. At Mixed Greens, Searching: Bas Jan Ader, Arianna Carossa & Mie Olise is a meditation on the search for meaning. The gallery is hosting some major works. Notably Ader, who is most famously known for works such as I’m Too Sad To Tell You and Broken Fall. On view is his final piece, In Search of The Miraculous. The piece began in 1973 when the Dutch-born sailor documented his nighttime walk through Los Angeles, from Hollywood to the ocean. On top of the stills of his journey, he wrote out the lyrics to the Coasters’ song Searchin’. In the next phase of his journey, he would make a trans-Atlantic voyage in a one-man yacht, followed by a final nighttime walk, this time through Amsterdam. On July 9, 1975, Ader set sail from Cape Cod. Remnants of his boat were found off the shore of Ireland, but Ader was lost at sea. |
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“the works in this show collectively explore formal and conceptual ghosts, romanticism, and myth. Through open-ended narratives and juxtapositions, their work comes to represent an artist’s timeless search for connection and communication.“
Two new exhibits opened this week in Chelsea dealing with themes of mourning, loss and searching. At Mixed Greens, Searching: Bas Jan Ader, Arianna Carossa & Mie Olise is a meditation on the search for meaning. The gallery is hosting some major works. Notably Ader, who is most famously known for works such as I’m Too Sad To Tell You and Broken Fall. On view is his final piece, In Search of The Miraculous. The piece began in 1973 when the Dutch-born sailor documented his nighttime walk through Los Angeles, from Hollywood to the ocean. On top of the stills of his journey, he wrote out the lyrics to the Coasters’ song Searchin’. In the next phase of his journey, he would make a trans-Atlantic voyage in a one-man yacht, followed by a final nighttime walk, this time through Amsterdam. On July 9, 1975, Ader set sail from Cape Cod. Remnants of his boat were found off the shore of Ireland, but Ader was lost at sea. As the press release states “the works in this show collectively explore formal and conceptual ghosts, romanticism, and myth. Through open-ended narratives and juxtapositions, their work comes to represent an artist’s timeless search for connection and communication.”
Searching is on view from September 6–October 6, 2012 at Mixed Greens 531 West 26th Street.
Douglas Gordon, The End of Civilisation (still), 2012. Three screen video installation with sound, Dimensions variable. Ed. of 3
Douglas Gordon’s latest video piece at Gagosian tackles collective memory and perception using the tropes of reality to create a work full of intensity. Set in a lushly green and desolate location, a piano is planted at the boundary between England and Scotland, once the border of the Roman Empire. The grand piano, symbolic of high culture, is then set aflame at the primeval edge of contemporary civilization. Using a primal medium infused with symbolic weight, The End of Civilisation is both celebratory and apocalyptic in the same breadth.
Gordon states “I wanted to do something with a piano in a landscape of some significance and I suppose, as a Scotsman, there’s nothing more significant than the border. I thought it was beautiful to look from one country into another and I liked the idea that Hadrian’s Wall is, under a certain interpretation, a great end of civilization… I was overwhelmed to be in a landscape of such beauty, and with such a huge unfathomable history.”
The End of Civilization is on view at Gagosian Gallery 522 West 21st Street until October 13.
