NYAB Event - "Alba" Exhibition

"Alba" Exhibition

Alan Klotz Gallery

This event has ended.

Alba, a 57-minute video-loop projection commissioned by a private collector from DennyWhite, the collaborative team of gallery artist Alyson Denny and Joshua White, founder of the legendary Joshua Light Show.

The collector told Ms. Denny over dinner that she wanted to live with white light on her wall. Ms. Denny suggested that she and Mr. White could make an epic journey in white. Thus Alba was born: A pure white opening transforms into layers of imagery involving light and shadow, white-on-white subjects, and various amounts of movement. (Think Robert Ryman doing video).

All of the source material in Alba is unmanipulated footage shot in real time. The balance between "straight" photography and lack of readability blends a sense of familiarity with one of intriguing disorientation.

Ms. Denny brings to this work a background in theatrical projections, filmmaking, and abstract photography. Her films are in more than 50 public collections, and her documentary (with Kate Davis) Girltalk is "one of the most talked-about films in PBS annals," said Newsweek. Of Alba she says, "What drew me in was the perfect fit with one of the central themes of my work: the search for balance between rules and freedoms. With Alba the only rule was that it had to be white. Josh and I agreed that other than that, anything should be allowed, so we gathered and shot a very wide range of materials. This extreme strictness paired with extreme variability was very exciting to work with."

Ms. Denny's photography has been shown regularly at the Alan Klotz Gallery, where an upcoming solo exhibition will include both photography and video.

Mr. White comes to Alba from a background in theater production, light shows, and TV directing. He is the creator of the now-legendary Joshua Light Show which performed in the late sixties at the Fillmore East with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead. Recently a regenerated version of The Joshua Light Show (often including Ms. Denny) has performed at Roseland Ballroom, Abrons Arts Center and Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

DennyWhite's initial video collaboration was included in the Joshua Light Show during Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4 at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, 2008.