Spotlight on Intersections@5: Nicholas and Sheila Pye

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Experiment Station

The Phillips celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Intersections contemporary art series with Intersections@5, an exhibition comprising work by 20 of the participating artists. In this blog series, each artist writes about his or her work on view.

Nicholas Pye and Sheila Pye, The Coronation, 2008. Single channel video with sound. Gift of the artists and Andrea Pollan

The Coronation is an installation project incorporating a blend of experimental and narrative techniques to shape a cinematic perspective that employs visual language commonly used in painting. The installation is composed of three parts, with all three cinematic ‘panels’ playing simultaneously. The concept for the installation was inspired by altarpiece triptychs from the Renaissance and Medieval periods in art history. Our aim was to create a modern allegorical interpretation of the triptych using video and sound. The center component became a conceptual performance based work on a loop, and projected in the portrait format. The centerpiece is flanked on either side by two life sized figures of a man and a woman also projected in portrait format. This work is not a narrative in the typical sense, but rather a series of constructed tableaus existing in a theatrical world.

Nicholas and Sheila Pye

Spotlight on Intersections@5: Annabel Daou

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Experiment Station

Annabel Daou, pieces of the love letter: the common tongue, 2014. Gift of the Artist and Tanja Wagner Gallery, Berlin, 2015

In pieces of the love letter: the common tongue, fragmented sheets of paper are left unmarked by ink, but are held together by mending tape, which is alternately adhered to or suspended above the paper. The love letter is repetitive and frantic. It attempts to lay claim to something solid and precise and yet it seems always on the verge of disintegration.

The love letter figures in this work figures as a privileged marker of the impossible adequateness of language and desire. The ability to express a seemingly universal emotion is perpetually placed in question, both by the work and by the authors of the language they employ.

This work furthers Daou’s exploration of the intersections between writing, speech, and non-verbal modes of communication. As elsewhere in her work, language emerges as a site of both ruin and repair.

ArtGrams: Allusion of Gravity

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Experiment Station

Instagrammer @thepaulrudolph captioned this close-up of Alyson Shotz’s Allusion of Gravity with a Herman Melville quote: “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

Alyson Shotz’s Allusion of Gravity, on view in Intersections@5, has been captivating audiences and taking over our Instagram feed. For this month’s ArtGrams, we’re highlighting a few of the most creative shots of this mesmerizing piece.

Photo by Instagrammer @a_colbs

Instagrammer @wolfofkstreet snapped this photo during a Phillips after 5.

Photo: Instagrammer @abby8ken

Instagrammer @uglyguckling_: “ALL the feels today.”