NYAB Event - Haresh Lalvani "2point5D+"

Haresh Lalvani "2point5D+"

de Castallane Gallery

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Focusing on the artist’s groundbreaking work at the intersection of Art and Science, the exhibition reveals Lalvani’s unique sculptural creations and the original artistic processes derived directly from his quest inspired by Nature’s designs, its generative principles and formal codes. PhD, sculptor, architect, morphologist, visual mathematician, inventor and Pratt Institute professor, Lalvani identifies the principles underlying natural and manmade forms, creating sculpture to reflect how material shapes form and space in a fundamental way. Sculptures from two of the artist's seminal series -Algorhythms and Xurf - are on display. Curated by core.curation, powered by core -formula.

Haresh Lalvani (b.1946) Ph.D., sculptor, architect, morphologist, visual mathematician, inventor and a professor at Pratt Institute, has been working for over 30 years to “decode the morphological genome” - essentially, identifying the principles underlying natural and manmade forms. While most of us live in three dimensions (four if you count time), Lalvani lives in a genomic world of several hundred dimensions or more and has dedicated himself to sequencing the morphological genome. The of the twenty-first century represents the genomic era, an understanding that complexities of our world are generated from simple codes - DNA for example. In sequencing the morphological genome and sculpting works derived from such principles, Lalvani stands at the dawn of genomic art as Alberti did at the dawn of perspective painting and Picasso at the dawn of Cubism. The exhibition traces the evolution of Lalvani’s genomic art as filtered through two major series, AlgoRhythms and the Xurf, each exploring Lalvani’s principal concern with the relationship between genetic codes and sculptural creation, and more specifically, between “genomics”–sculpture derived from formal rules, and “epigenomics”–works created through external agents like forces, respectively. The title of the exhibition, 2point5D+ begins to reveal the fundamental creative process of Lalvani's sculpture. All begin with conceptually exploiting and transforming flat (2-dimensional) sheet metal into a 3-dimensional piece. Intrinsic to Lalvani’s creative process is the balance between 2d and 3d concepts at all times, many projected from higher dimensions; the final works are clearly 3-dimensional, yet constant interplay between physical 2d and 3d is central to the genesis of his sculpture.

AlgoRhythms
The AlgoRhythms series continues the longstanding artistic tradition of exploring the human condition, and in particular, the human relationship with nature, through high technology that brings us closer to nature. Representing a technology for the non-deformational forming of sheet metal using conic surfaces, the works reveal curvilinear forms derived from the same principles that create the flows of nature. Material flows according to morphologic laws that are closer to fluid motion than that of static objects; “AlgoRhythm” seeks to capture the flow, harmony and movement of these sculptures as well as the use of their generative procedures. Generated in higher dimensions using morphogenomics, the AlgoRhythm forms self-adjust according to their movements and are finally brought into metal by innovative laser and water-jet technology.

Xurf
While the AlgoRhythms series apply pure mathematics to surfaces, Xurf introduces force, thereby adding physics to mathematics. Rather than emerging from predetermined computations, forms
emerge from controlled physical encounters, recalling the drop paintings of Jackson Pollock. Pieces become self-shaping and self stabilizing, as they find their own centers of gravity, generating curved surfaces untouched by human hands in most cases. Referencing the morphologist, D’Arcy Thompson, Form follows Force.

About the Artist
Dr. Haresh Lalvani is a tenured professor of Architecture at Pratt Institute where he has influenced
generations of designers, artists and architects. Known worldwide for his morphological, structural,
and design innovations, Lalvani holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked at NASA-Langley Research Center on space applications and at Computer Graphics Laboratory, NYIT, on computer-animations. He serves on the editorial board of Space Structures, (France), and is the author of two books, Transpolyhedra and Structures on Hyper-Structures. An award recipient from NYSTAR, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Institute for Architectural Education, Lalvani received the Pioneers' Award from the Space Structures Research Center, University of Surrey, U.K. in 2002. He was a speaker at TED2004, Monterey, California and will speak at TEDx Brooklyn 2010. From his playful and challenging Metapuzzles to his discovery of Hyper-Geodesic Structures for architecture, Lalvani continues to combine his love of art and mathematics in his search for the architectural genome and his efforts to generate new languages of art and design. Lalvani has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout North America and Europe including Morphogenomics (2004) at the Municipal Arts Society, New York; Aión: An Eventual Architecture (2003), at the first Prague Biennale; and was artist-in-residence (1992-2002) at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York. His group exhibitions have included IAAC Erasing Borders (2009), Aicon, New York and the Queens Museum of Art, New York; Siggraph (2008), Los Angeles; and BreakThroughs (2007), at the Liberty Science Center, New Jersey. His AlgoRhythm columns are in the permanent design collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and were exhibited following their acquisition in 2004 and at the reopening of the Museum the same year. Lalvani continues to sculpt and to further the development of genomic art. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

About Core Formula / Core Curation
Launched in February 2008, core.form-ula curates platforms, both physical and virtual, where architects, artists, designers, engineers, scientists, and writers can join in a collaborative space. core.form-ula's goal is to capture cultural content related to design, engineering, science, technology, and art organized into an on-line repository that can be accessed and disseminated quickly for consumption globally. Based in New York with contributors in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Rome, and Los Angles, it is a supplement to cultural education unbound by geographical or political alliances that have locked ideas in their respective institutions, and is freed by a series of social networks that allow a higher degree of fluidity. Currently, core.form-ula consists of 5 minor divisions; hard.core (hardware), soft.core (software), core.balance (new models of labor, material production, and sustainability), core.curation (art) and core.awareness (history, interviews, profiles and articles). Content is curated in each division, exposing readers to core cultural information. core.form-ula is co-directed by Ajmal Aqtash and Richard Sarrach.