Time, Space & Alchemy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


WHEN: July 12– August 9, 2008

RECEPTION: Sat, July 12, 6-9 p.m.

HOURS: Tues-Sat, 11-6 or by Appointment



Carl Berg Gallery is pleased to present “Time, Space & Alchemy” a group exhibition where artists explore the territory where science and art merge, somewhere between the real and imagined. Artists are often the prognosticators of the future portraying ideas and concepts that at some point in time may become the future. Their creative minds work outside the established science realm often opening up possibilities of the “what if.” In Time, Space and Alchemy four artists, Claudia Bucher, Andrew Krasnow, Carrie Paterson and Ephraim Puusemp, explore this realm presenting artworks that cause the viewer to wonder and speculate about the possibilities of the future.

Claudia Bucher has explored science and art since she was in the MFA program at Art Center. For this exhibition she will be presenting a wall sculpture titled Probe. This piece depicts the moment of arrival and partial emergence into visibility by a space-time probe whose function is the extended sentience of the artist’s alchemical doppelganger. The probe is constructed out of vacuformed clear plastic packaging containers left over by the artist’s consumption of consumer goods and foodstuffs and miscellaneous cannibalized electronic consumer gadgets. The artist’s body is used as a template for the internal hollow forms of the probe making it also a type of second skin cloaking device or bodily hermetic vessel. The absent material forms, transmuted by consumption, whose trace images are impressed in clear plastic, conjure the world of shadow forms and Anthropos, (the invisible inner being, the androgynous child of the unknown god) whose copied image is the template for the human body.

Andrew Krasnow has explored the realm of science and art for over 20 years. For this exhibition Krasnow will present a sculpture titled Model for a Reversible Universe, an hourglass that Andrew describes as an H-G Prototype. This piece is a conceptual model for a wide-ranging array of hourglasses of various sizes and forms, which will be modified to communicate color and thematic content and is set for exhibition both in the U.S. and abroad. This sculpture has been reconfigured to accept new content much as a television or any visual medium might. Apart from the sand, grit and ash used in the work, thematic content is determined by the hexagonal bases/platforms on which the work rests. On one platform are three pyramids and on its opposite are two rectangular prisms. Though free of detail these geometric shapes, due to scale as well as form, suggest the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Great Pyramids of Giza. In spite of this Euclidian bond they are positioned as if on opposite ends of the world.

Carrie Paterson received her MFA from University of California, Irvine in 2001 and since graduating her work has been driven by conceptual concerns. In her newest piece titled Strange Attractor, Paterson explores the merging of art and science in a piece that has a stout conceptual underpinning as well as a strong visual presence.

Strange Attractor is a conceptual work that includes several components including drawings, an illustrated book and series of sculptural works made of scientific hand-blown glass. The creation of these works has employed a great deal of research in glass blowing, organic chemistry, and the history of science and has culminated in a project that is layered both conceptually and physically.

Paterson’s main sculptural object in the exhibition is a nine-layer perfume bottle that functions as the primary demonstration object in this larger endeavor. This bottle consists of nine layers of orbs that reside inside of one another, from the largest on the outside to the smaller at the inner core. Each separate orb contains a different scent of perfume that is individually accessible through separate tubular shafts penetrating the different layers of the bottle. Ten additional, smaller hand-blown bottles, each with only one layer and a single different scent, is also included in this project. The viewer will have the opportunity to smell the different aromas that have also been created by Paterson. A reference book is also of her project is included with this exhibition.

The project continues her interest in exploring the boundaries between art and science, imagination and invention. At its core the project is based upon a desire to model cultural paradigm shifts as they are mirrored in science.

Many of Paterson’s visual references for this project have come from investigations into representations of outer space and the planets in our solar system. One starting point was the early maps of the heavens made during the Enlightenment and Age of Reason in Western Europe. These representations attempt to outline the place of humanity in the celestial context. They espouse differing viewpoints: Was the Earth the center of the solar system as Ptolemy and Aristotle argued? Or was it the sun? The early Greek astronomer Aristarchus (270 B.C.E.) made the first argument in Western civilization for a sun centered solar system, but his contemporaries’ geocentric ideas would hold sway for almost 2000 years.

Ephraim Puusemp, a recent graduate from the MFA program at UCLA, creates idiosyncratic artworks that explore notions of human perception. His work often investigates the realm of perceptual wonderment where art, science and culture intersect. In his newest piece a figurine cast from “Campo del Cielo” Iron Meteorite will be installed on the wall of the gallery.

Approximately 5000 years ago, a massive iron meteorite struck the Earth in an area of what is now Argentina, known as the “Gran Chaco Gualamba.” For countless generations the inhabitants of this region expressed their knowledge of this celestial event through story and myth. In 1576 a Spanish governor learned of a great mass of iron in the “Gran Chaco” from local Indians. The Aboriginal name for this meteoric impact site and the iron it possessed was translated into Spanish as “Campo del Cielo, (Field of Sky).” In a work cast from “Campo del Cielo” Iron Meteorite, Ephraim Puusemp interprets the history of this meteorite and its connection to shamanism while exploring the link between colonialism and the conquest of space.

In a second piece in the exhibition Puusemp will present a piece titled “Thirteen Balls”, a mixed media installation constructed from a fabricated box, chrome, glass, aluminum and thirteen dirt balls that were obtained from the interior of an automotive tire. The dirt balls were formed from dust particles within the tire, through a process caused by tire rotation. Critical information concerning the ball formation is presented, including distance traveled by the automobile, tire size, number of rotations, specific mass and diameter of each ball, and average mass and diameter. These bi-products and the processes by which they were created are given new value through their presentation. In his work objects of waste become sacred artifacts.

Time, Space & Alchemy brings together a group of four artists who explore the realm of man’s place in the world as seen through the intersection of art and science blurring the real and the imagined in a world of infinite possibilities.

For more information contact: Carl Berg: Tel: 323-931-6060.