Mathias Kessler and Andrea Galvani “In Cold Blood”

Y Gallery (319 Grand St.)

poster for Mathias Kessler and Andrea Galvani “In Cold Blood”

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Y Gallery presents In Cold Blood a selection of works by Italian artist, Andrea Galvani, and Austrian artist, Mathias Kessler curated by Cecilia Jurado. The two artists have traveled to the coldest confines of the planet where they confronted the overwhelming grandiosity of nature. For instance, by illuminating large parts of icy landscapes, they tried to conquer an otherwise unreachable place. Only to reveal how a journey as ambitious as these can solely manifest extraordinary attempts through significant works. Galvani has used photography for his project. We witness an existentialist trip charged with loneliness and fascination by discovery. Kessler has chosen digital renderings, photography and a mirror that melts and freezes while the spectator sees his/her image being reflected. This last work, the mirror, could synthesize the nerve of the exhibition. The seeking of truth in the vain of explorers of the past could be an introspective trip to unknown sides of our human condition.

In his Higgs Ocean series, Galvani programmed an excursion executed off the coast of the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Circle. The project was developed with the assistance of a team of New York-based, Russian engineers over the course of a four-month period. Solar photovoltaic modules were used to collect the daily dosage of light energy produced by the sun over a 2,800 km sail. The amassed electricity was then used to power a flashlight generating a beam of light over 200,000 ANSI lumens, with strength enough to break through earth’s atmosphere. The unimpeded light will travel infinitely in space, and thus, in the words of Galvani, “the luminescent memory of the journey had been returned to the universe.”

Mathias Kessler’s project entitled, Islands of Time, entailed the artist’s travels to IIulissat, Greenland where the Jackobshaven Glacier meets water level, emerging as an archipelago of icebergs. Kessler photographed the quintessential landscape exposing the duality between our quest for the taintless environment and tarnish as a denouement of its discovery. The Sea of Ice is a 3D photorealistic rendering of a painting by the German-Romantic artist, Caspar David Friedrich. In relation to Kessler’s breadth of work and the historical parameters surrounding Friedrich’s painting, the context of this digitally conceived rendering questions the principles of a painting in times of cybernated manipulation and how fantasy can become reality via photographic representation. It Will Blow Over (Worldview of the Arctic) provides viewers with an increased corporeal association with the sensational elements experienced by the artist and his team while pursuing these projects. As the mirror continuously cycles through the process of melting and freezing at -22°F, the unbridled, crystallized patterns progressively evolve, similar to the never-ending changes in life, intrinsic to life’s nature.

Andrea Galvani (b. in Italy 1973) lives and works in New York and Mexico City. Drawing from other disciplines and often assuming scientific methodologies, his conceptual research informs his use of photography, video, drawing, and installation. Galvani’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Museum, New York, NY; 4th Moscow Biennale for Contemporary Art; the Mediations Biennale, Poznan, Poland; the Aperture Foundation, New York, NY; the Calder Foundation, New York; the Central Utah Art Center, Ephraim, UT; Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Trento, Italy; Macro Museum, Rome, Italy; GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy; De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Oslo Plads, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the Unicredit Pavillion, Bucharest, Romania. In 2011, he received the New York Exposure Prize and was nominated for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Selected publications include: Flash Art, Art Forum, Art Papers, Art News, Modern Painters, The New Yorker, Tema Celeste, Around Photography, Herald Tribune, Boiler magazine, Title, Arte Critica and Zoom Magazine.

Mathias Kessler (b. in Austria 1968), has recently had solo exhibitions at the Rosphot National Museum for Photography in St. Petersburg, the GL Holtegaard Museum in Copenhagen, and at the Kunstraum Dornbrin in Austria. His most recent group exhibitions include “[UN]NATURAL LIMITS” at the Austrian Cultural Institute in New York, “Hohe Dosis” at the Fotohof & Atterseehalle in Salzburg, Austria, “The Nature of Disappearance” at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, “Hoehenrausch II” at the Offenes Kunsthaus in Linz, Austria, “Point of Intersection Linz” at the Art Museum Linz, “GO NYC” at the Kunsthalle Krems in Austria, and “The Invention of Landscape” at the Museo del Palaxio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. His work is included in the Cisneros Collection, the Landesmuseum Vorarlberg, the Nordico Landesmuseum Linz, and the Illwerke VKW Kunstsammlung. In 2009 he was awarded the prestigious Staatsstipendium fuer Fotografie award in Vienna.

[Image: Mathias Kessler “Sea of Ice” (2013) C-print mounted with gallery plexi, 97 x 127 in.]

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Schedule

from September 11, 2013 to October 06, 2013

Opening Reception on 2013-09-11 from 18:00 to 21:00

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