an island as it might be

Katrina Moorhead

Exposición: Nov 10, 2005 – Ene 22, 2006


an island as it might be (una isla como pudiera ser) amplía físicamente el diseño y las exploraciones arquitectónicas de Moorhead, ofreciendo la naturaleza a ella misma. La pieza re-orienta y abstracta un techo ornamental de salón de baile a 180 grados hasta que queda sobre el piso; su regularidad descomponiéndose mientras que sus calidades de paisaje crecen.

Desprovisto de todo color inesperado, el ambiente espeluznante, a la misma vez artificial y orgánico, solo retiene los vestigios de un espirito que una vez fue celebrado.

La galería es desorientadamente llena con una plataforma baja pintada con el mismo blanco de las paredes. Las abstracciones decorativas vegetales y florales que normalmente colgarían simétricamente por encima, en cambio suben del piso. Montones de yeso se convierten en colinas, medallones se vuelven raíces, molduras se rompen, y candelabros iluminados se convierten en árboles. La artista ha amplificado el aire acondicionado del cuarto, lo cual estimula el flujo de aire, dentro de una pieza de sonido susurrante que atrae el aire libre.

La naturaleza y el artificio luchan silenciosamente durante todo. Luz del sol rastrillante se dobla con bombillos brillantes, estructuras moldeadas se convierten en topografías, murmullos mecanizados de ambiente contrastan con viento suave, y yeso crudo y trabajado obtienen igual atención.

La atmósfera ambigua de an island as it might be (una isla como pudiera ser) sigue la investigación de Moorhead dentro de las negociaciones contemporáneas de lo salvaje y lo doméstico. Siguiendo los proyectos pasados, es al mismo tiempo fantástico y respetuoso—a la vez físicamente y psicológicamente reservado y expansivo.

-Kate Green
Conservadora Asistente

Artista

Katrina Moorhead

Houston, Texas, USA

Katrina Moorhead’s drawings, objects, and installations focus on the seemingly ordinary. Whether translating bathroom graffiti into a planted garden or paint chips into a billboard the colors of the sky, the artist often explores artificial representations of nature and approaches each project with a delicate, spare hand that casts the familiar anew.
For her contribution to the recent 51st Venice Biennial Moorhead crafted On or About December 1981 (2005), a pair of iconic gull- wing doors from the short-lived DeLorean car, produced from 1981-83 in Northern Ireland. The artist revived the natural origins of this once-touted symbol of industrial utopianism by draining the car parts of their metallic and mechanical past. Sculpted in bass and plywood, the doors were removed from their adjacent body and lay isolated on the gallery floor like now-broken wings. This minimal work, like Moorhead’s others, is both poetic homage to intricate engineering and a melancholic exploration of the synthetic ways humans experience the natural world.
Born in Coleraine, Northern Ireland in 1971, Katrina Moorhead currently resides in Houston, TX. She received an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, in 1996. Solo shows include Inman Gallery (2006) and Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, TX (2002, 1998). She has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (2005); the 51st Venice Biennial, Italy (2005); and The Vardy Gallery, University of Sunderland, England (2004).

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Curador

Berta Sichel

Madrid, Spain

Originally from Brazil, Berta Sichel received her MA in Media Ecology from New York University, NY in 1984 and has worked toward her doctorate from the same institution. She is the Director of the Department of Audiovisuals and Film and Video Curator at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain and has organized projects with Jeremy Blake, Fluxus Films, Michael Snow, and many others. Sichel was the curator of Aztlán Today: The Chicano Post-Nation, which was shown at the Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, Spain, and Virgin Territory: Women, Gender and History in Contemporary Brazilian Art at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

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