NYAB Event - Jenny Perlin “One Hundred Sinkholes”

Jenny Perlin “One Hundred Sinkholes”

Simon Preston Gallery

This event has ended.

Perlin incorporates hand-drawn animation, 16mm film, video and drawing in order to create compelling multi-disciplinary installations. Her rigorous research combines ideas about philosophy, linguistics, literature and history with experiential and personal journeys. For this exhibition, she takes the increasing global phenomenon of sinkholes as a point of departure; mining the sudden collapse of the earth’s surface as a metaphor for unexpected gaps, cognitive failures and chance detours.

Forming the preface of the show, Perlin methodically and systematically catalogues one hundred individual sinkholes, sourced from online data. Undermining their monumental scale, each sinkhole is reproduced as a small work on paper, abstracted into geometric line and color. In addition, a 16mm film titled 100 Sinkholes renders the same images in graphite, each insistently filling the emptiness of the void. As a sinkhole emerges, it quickly disappears into the unsteady rhythm of the animation. An accompanying film titled Inks, rendered in black marker, ferociously loops, gradually destroying the film in the process.

In contrast to the 16mm films, five oil stick works on paper continue Perlin’s longstanding interest in the writings of Henri Bergson. In his seminal text The Creative Mind, Bergson repeatedly addresses the color orange as ‘the component part’, the space between red and yellow in reference to perception, duration and intuition. Perception of orange is in reality a variety of shades – in turn Perlin has employed three different brands of cadmium orange (R&F, Windsor & Newton, Sennelier) in order to illustrate the breadth of our individual intuition. Continuity of experience permeates each of these works, creating unexpected adjacencies against the sinkholes’ persistent unfolding.

The exhibition coincides with a presentation of three in-depth programs of Perlin’s film work at Anthology Film Archives on 15 & 16 September. In addition, a collaborative film by Jacqueline Goss and Jenny Perlin titled The Measures will premiere at the New York Film Festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Friday, October 3rd.