NYAB Event - Jonathan Horowitz “402 Dots, Line, and the One Note Samba”

Jonathan Horowitz “402 Dots, Line, and the One Note Samba”

Karma

This event has ended.

Karma is presents 402 Dots, Line, and the One Note Samba, an exhibition of three works by Jonathan Horowitz. 402 Dots (2014) is a monumentally-scaled painting comprised of 402 canvases, each one painted by a different artist. Participants in the project were instructed to paint a perfect, solid black dot with an 8 inch diameter in the center of a 12 inch square canvas, using only the provided paint and brushes. The resulting dots all differ in size, shape, position, and texture. The paintings are hung in a brick pattern, suggesting a blown-up field of irregular Ben-Day dots. Like a vast population, together they create a paean to human struggle, acceptance, and individuality.

As the printed image is made up of dots, the image of a cathode ray tube (CRT) television is comprised of lines. In the rarely seen video work Line (1998), Horowitz takes this language of TV as his subject. In Line a single frame consists of two fields of lines that are interlaced: a single white line strobes in the center of a black field, a stable image requiring at least two lines of information. As in Horowitz’s seminal video Maxell (1990), a technological malfunction animates a still image. The work eerily suggests a flatlined cardiogram, and now, 13 years later, the metaphor is reinforced by the CRT TV’s technological obsolescence.

A soundtrack for the exhibition is provided by the new audio piece One Note Sambas (2014). The work, which plays from an iPod, is a Spotify playlist of 469 versions (and counting) of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s classic bossa nova song from 1960, “One Note Samba.” New digital technology has created an enormous database of music that can be accessed and added to by anyone. A search for “One Note Samba,” one of the most recorded songs in popular music, brings up classic renditions by Frank Sinatra, Sergio Mendes, and Ella Fitzgerald, in addition to less well know versions such as that of Irene and her Latin Jazz Band, a “One Note Samba” ring tone, and Clare Burt performing live at Pizza on the Park. Resonating with 402 Dots and Line, the work poignantly underscores the equalizing power of digital technology.