This 1980 painting on hand-woven linen by video art pioneer Beryl Korot (seen in detail) demonstrates the language she devised, based on the grid of woven cloth. The text is based on the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis, an account in which language fragments. For Korot, Babel offers a chance to consider the ways that language and technology relate to human behavior. (On view at Bitforms through May 20th).
Yves Klein’s use of nude female models – daubed in his signature blue paint – as live paintbrushes increases in political incorrectness as the years go by. Now, Addie Wagenknecht has joined the ranks of artists who’ve responded with their own takes on Klein’s iconic objectification. Engaging a Roomba to paint as it skirted her nude body, Wagenknecht creates expressionist canvases with an algorithm and robot. (On view at Bitforms on the Lower East Side through Feb 11th).
In Jonathan Monaghan’s latest fantastical animation, Disco Beast, a unicorn is captured and drained of energy by a predatory cell phone charging station only to be reborn in a luxury building’s hidden disco. Here, the unicorn is penned in by a ring of TSA scanners, an allusion to the Renaissance Unicorn Tapestries (which act as metaphor for marriage, among other things) and an update on the experience of being ‘captured.’ (On view at Bitforms on the Lower East Side through Dec 10th).
Off-the-wall artwork isn’t unusual on the Lower East Side, but artist Daniel Canogar’s flexible LED screen-sculptures give new meaning to the phrase. In a solo show at Bitforms Gallery, Canogar employs grids of LEDS on flexible backing to display undulating patterns, derived from real-time environmental data, from temperature to seismic activity. (On the Lower East Side through Oct 14th).
Real time seismic activity interrupts the shifting abstract patterns on Daniel Canogar’s curving panels, merging art and distant, powerful forces. Peeling off the wall on flexible LED tiles arranged on an armature, ‘Echo’ strains for our attention and gets it. (At Bitforms on the Lower East Side through July 30th).
