Rivane Neuenschwander: Other Stories and Stories of Others: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
Informed by the Neoconcrete movement of the 1970s in Brazil, Neuenschwander transforms the idea of narrative from an abstraction into concrete manifestations, creating discrete objects to be observed, considered, analyzed and understood, for significance beyond the verbal.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is very pleased to announce, Other Stories and Stories of Others, the gallery’s first exhibition with Rivane Neuenschwander and the artist's first solo gallery exhibition in New York. The show is comprised of installation-based work, video, and works on paper, each exploring Neuenschwander's interest in chance, control and collaboration. Often, the artist makes works that set certain simple elements into motion, believing that external forces, whether they be other people, or natural processes, combine to produce a dynamic result that transcends the capacity or intent of any individual's control. At times these works are interactive, and at others the works are the result of a more empirical process. Themes of language and narrative are featured throughout Rivane's work. Informed by the Neoconcrete movement of the 1970s in Brazil, Neuenschwander transforms the idea of narrative from an abstraction into concrete manifestations, creating discrete objects to be observed, considered, analyzed and understood, for significance beyond the verbal.
In the central installation, "Secondary Stories" the artist creates a constantly changing composition of color over the heads of the visitors, as circles of tissue paper are blown around by fans set above a transparent ceiling structure, occasionally falling through the perforations in the ceiling and scattering across the floor, mirroring the color above. The fallen colored dots are then further moved upon the floor as per the incidental movements of the visitors to the gallery. In a separate room in the rear of the main gallery space, the artist has installed a remarkable selection of drawings made by visitors to the last Venice Biennale. Biennale participants created the drawings with a typewriter, modified by Rivane to produce only dots of color and shape, but no letters. The drawings are displayed here along with a single modified typewriter - open for the public to use and interact with. In the adjoining room, "Quarta-Feira de Cinzas/Epilogue" a video installation, made in collaboration with Cao Guimarães, presents armies of black ants carrying small pieces of colored confetti, creating their own narrative of creation, composition and production.
