Events Calendar
Shulamit Gallery: Relief - A Solo Exhibition by David Abir
Shulamit Gallery is pleased to present RELIEF, a solo exhibition by David Abir and the final installment of a series of four exhibitions: RUIN, RENEW, REVIEW and RELIEF, that tell a fictional historical narrative of a civilization who archived its knowledge in vessels of sound and light.
RELIEF, which occupies the main gallery space, culminates in the reconstruction of a distinct antechamber from the fictional monument: TEKRAR. Five relief sculptures provide "legends" or "hieroglyphs" to this story - whose black silhouettes on white grounds introduce a whole new dimension to the purely geometric vocabulary of TEKRAR. "TEKRAR," a Persian term, denotes reiteration and repetition, with the inferred idea of reconstitution, and in each of the four installations Abir has reconstituted the elements of the last by reformulating and adding to them.
The implication is that each installation exists in a partial state of ruin (the first of the series was called Ruins), waiting to be rebuilt - and to be reconfigured in the rebuilding. But the recycling of formal and subjective elements throughout the sequence also gives the four installations the quality of a symphony, one organized along the traditional lines of Western compositional practice, with main and secondary themes introduced and developed so that each movement is distinguished both by original material and material carried over and re-interpreted. RELIEF is thus the fourth and final movement of a kind of visual-architectural "symphony". Even its soundtrack fits into this conceptual schema: as the previous installations had been sonically enlivened by Abir's reworking of specific symphonic music (by, among others, Gustav Mahler and Johannes Brahms), so RELIEF's ambient sound consists of those re-workings further developed with music by Johann Sebastian Bach and original compositions by Abir himself.
Miri Chais debuts at Shulamit Gallery with an installation titled We Are The Hollow Men. The installation will feature paintings, video, sound, sculpture and new media works in the project space and individual works throughout the gallery. This installation is an extension of Miri's recent solo exhibition at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, and explores many of the same themes regarding the effects of technology on contemporary society. The show's title references T. S. Eliot's famous poem, written on the cusp of an earlier wave of modernization, which interpreted the "new order" as a vitiating force, robbing individuals of their potency, will, and sense of self. Like Eliot, Chais senses "something gone terribly wrong" in contemporary life as a result of technology's pervasive presence. Something has gone missing: Our privacy, our agency, our spirit, our identity. All over again, we are fast becoming Eliot's "hollow men... the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw..."
RELIEF andWe Are The Hollow Men will be on view January 22, 2015 - March 7, 2015. Shulamit Gallery Hours are Tuesday - Saturday 10:00am - 6:00pm. Parking is available at the parking structure located across the street from LA Louver Gallery or at the Venice Beach parking lot at the end of North Venice Blvd. Please email lauren@shulamitgallery.com or call us to schedule an appointment to view works.
Date and Time
Thursday Jan 22, 2015 Saturday Mar 7, 2015
Opening Reception
January 22, 2015
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Exhibition on view:
January 22 - March 7, 2015
Gallery hours:
Tuesday - Saturday
10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Location
Shulamit Gallery
17 North Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
Website
Contact Information
310.281.0961
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