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In September 2006, the NARS (New York Arts, Residence and Studios) Foundation opened three studio complexes in Brooklyn—totaling 11,500, 13,000 and 17,000 square feet each—and offered artists 24-hour access. The inaugural group exhibition, “Pipe Lines,” which opened in September, celebrated the opening of the space at 88 35th Street, Brooklyn, and featured painting, sculpture, photography, video and installations by 23 artists from the US, Mexico, Korea, China, Japan, Iran, France and Spain—all of whom are currently living and working in the New York Metropolitan area. In the words of exhibition curator Iris Moon, “this exhibition is about celebrating the establishment of a new multi-disciplinary, multi-national art space.” |
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Pipeline Exhibition – Rieko Fujinami
In September 2006, the NARS (New York Arts, Residence and Studios) Foundation opened three studio complexes in Brooklyn—totaling 11,500, 13,000 and 17,000 square feet each—and offered artists 24-hour access.
The inaugural group exhibition, “Pipe Lines,” which opened in September, celebrated the opening of the space at 88 35th Street, Brooklyn, and featured painting, sculpture, photography, video and installations by 23 artists from the US, Mexico, Korea, China, Japan, Iran, France and Spain—all of whom are currently living and working in the New York Metropolitan area.
In the words of exhibition curator Iris Moon, “this exhibition is about celebrating the establishment of a new multi-disciplinary, multi-national art space.” The title “Pipe Lines” refers to the interactions among the artists, and among various cultural traditions, but it also refers to the actual painted red pipes running throughout the ceilings of the studio spaces, like veins pumping blood through a living organism.
Each work is powerful in itself, but the synergy of the combined works raises the temperature, and the excitement. I personally was especially impressed by the thought-provoking installations of some of the video artists, whose magical visual effects encouraged the viewer to stay and watch for an extended period of time within their installation environment—something unusual for most video installations.
Jaye Rhee’s Zen Garden consists of a couple of two-channel video presentations. On one wall, a close-up video image shows the artist partially erasing penciled words which had been written all over the floor, while gathering the eraser and graphite fragments resulting from this action into the center. On another wall, we see cherry blossoms falling to the ground until it is completely covered. These works show an interesting paradox: the form and sense of mu or zero, in the mathematical or philosophical sense, alongside the creation of a feeling of calmness.
Another video installation, Supernovae, a floral non-still life by Jeremiah Tiepen, uses a curved mirror in the corner of the wall to reflect and to distort the projected images, which quickly become a sculpture of light, color, time and motion. Ultimately, the complex work creates a beautiful, trance-like feeling.
Gustavo Artigas’s Pedagogy is a projected DVD video within which someone repeatedly hits his finger with a tin can while a line of people wait their turn to do the same. This simple action seems to cause pain and, accordingly, the people waiting expect this same result, a fact that gradually builds up the group’s anticipation and fear of what’s to come; like school childrens’ fearful imagination while waiting in line, together, to receive their vaccination from a doctor. The viewer, too, develops a sympathetic feeling for the imagined self-inflicted pain in the video. The title, Pedagogy (the philosophy of teaching methods), seems to suggest a darker side to education—as a method of easily controlling people through threat of punishment or the promise of a prize. It seems to say, “This could happen to you soon.”
Hee Seop Yoon’s Junkshop, an installation that creates a giant drawing made entirely of black tape spread over the wall and floor, powerfully uses this material to express the chaos of things discarded by the speed of contemporary society. The doom encapsulated in these things expands because we are too tired or too lazy to stop it; it rushes into our lives like an overflowing black stream that overwhelms us all.
Ultimately, the foundation hopes that these spaces will herald a new type of studio culture. Those involved have tried to plan out an effective working environment for artists by connecting their art not only to Brooklyn and New York, but also to the larger global community. According to curator Iris Moon, “It is the foundation’s goal to become a major channel for art by establishing independent relationships with art-based and non-art-based professions, so that artists can experience positive outcomes from valuable encounters, interactions, interchanges and from their own experiences of self-expression.”
NARS is especially interested in working with artists from other countries so that a fusion and transmission of many different cultural elements can take place. NARS hopes to develop a support system to help women and Asian artists, as well as artists from developing countries, and is also working to create a space where artists from other countries will find inspiration. In turn, these artists will bring new energy to American artists and will hopefully pump new blood into the New York City art scene.
