NYAB Event - Jean-Pierre Gauthier Exhibition

Jean-Pierre Gauthier Exhibition

Jack Shainman Gallery

This event has ended.

Jack Shainman Gallery presents Jean-Pierre Gauthier’s third exhibition with the gallery, Recent Work. The exhibition includes four new kinetic sculptures combining utilitarian and common materials such as motors, microcontrollers, metal cables and tubing, with microphones and audio amplifiers.

Gauthier is attracted to systems that are unpredictable, open, interconnected and nonlinear. Stressato, though seemingly mechanical, is not a machine, but a writhing system. Its six metal cables react violently and squirm unpredictably in the presence of the visitor. Each of the cables moves independently from the others, almost combative. They twist, become entangled, and twirl in all directions as if responding to a threat. When the viewer gets too close, the serpents become even more violently agitated, moving on a silicone-coated table with the agility and speed of samurai.

Thorax, a moving sound installation, creates modulations using air. Tubular metallic structures are mounted on the walls, while audio controls sit within the curves of their arabesques and spirals. Electronic circuits, electrical networks and pneumatic tubes are organically integrated with the cylindrical structures. Like a thorax or rib cage, the structures protect these vital elements, holding them in place. Elongated pouches of soft silicone dangle from the edifice, releasing air that is pulsed through tiny air nozzles running automatically at various speeds and rhythms. The sounds emitted recall a storm, the crash of waves, a snore, a sigh, a far-off clap of thunder, an impending earthquake or the whistle of a bird meant to recall the incoherency and mutations of the mental images that we receive in dreams.

Using random events and viewer participation, Jean-Pierre Gauthier plays with emotional and mechanical patterns and reflexes while simultaneously engulfing the exhibition space with interconnecting sounds and movement.