Review of Red Sea in Cologne
Michael Somoroff - Red Sea from Institut für Kunstdokumentation on Vimeo.
Link to Institut für Kunstdokumentation und Szenografie
September 7th, 2009
Illumination I at The Fields Sculpture Park
Continuing on it’s journey, Illumination I will be on view at The Fields Sculpture Park this summer. The opening is June 21st from 3-6pm. The Fields Sculpture Park is part of the OMI International Art Center in Ghent, New York.
Illumination I @ The Fields Sculpture Park
June 3rd, 2008
The Absence of the Subject
The Absence of the SubjectFollowing his installation at the Rothko Chapel and his recent solo exhibition at the Aldrich Museum, Michael Somoroff’s latest body of work continues to explore his concern with the meta-physical foundations of reality.
With his exhibition The Absence of the Subject, Michael Somoroff creates a new series based on the seminal body of photographic work by German Photographer August Sander (born 1876). Sander documented the populace of Weimar Germany to show niches in a caste system of a supposedly democratic and freethinking republic.
Using video installation, 3-D animation, and classical photography, this body of work is a complex inquiry into what the American sociologist Peter Berger calls “the social construction of reality”.
With the gesture of removing the subjects from August Sander’s haunting and political body of portraiture, Somoroff illuminates the context of the lives, or “life force” of the subjects portrayed in Sander’s portraits, thus catalyzing the perceptual essence of mortality and its relationship to the history of photography.
This illuminated context then becomes the new subject and we are led to into the “optical unconscious” of Walter Benjamin (German philosopher, born 1892). The former portraits become landscapes, still lives and sublime voids within which the viewer can partake in a new journey. The resulting effect is often the unsettling feeling of wonderment and isolation, fundamental components in our collective desire for community.
March 1st, 2008
Press Release for Illumination and Illumination I
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Ricky Lee
ricky@presssecretariat.org
917 438 7015
MICHAEL SOMOROFF’S ILLUMINATION AND ILLUMINATION 1
BravinLee programs Off-Site unveils the new video installation as
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum features the genre-defying sculpture it inspired.
Illumination
June 21 - August 10, 2007
Opening: 6-8 p.m., Thursday, June 21
BravinLee programs Off Site
508 West 26 Street (ground floor), NY, NY
Illumination I
June 24- October 14, 2007
Opening: 3-5 p.m., Sunday, June 24
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT
(Please note transportation information below)
Click here to download a pdf of the press release
Illumination and Illumination I, Michael Somoroff’s unprecedented creations can be counted both separately and together as groundbreaking and genre-defying. Each work generates a total immersion experience realized through the application of invented technologies; each reflects the artist’s passion for light and its provocative use as both a real and virtual medium – for video that is sculpture, and sculpture that is architecture. Together, they comprise an ever-evolving art event – and the overlapping of the exhibitions in New York and Connecticut this summer provides the first opportunity for viewers to experience the symbiotic relationship between the two installations.
For Illumination, Mr. Somoroff has created an immersive 3-D surround sound video installation using high definition video technology and one of the first completely surround video projectors ever used in a video art project. Illumination is a synthesis of film, video, high-definition computer animation, and virtual photography components that together with its architectural environment culminate in one seamless, 270-degree surround experience. Mr. Somoroff has developed custom-made projectors and software for the installation. A musical score by acclaimed experimental electronic music composer Robert Rich will enhance the videos that will be experienced inside the space further.
The artist’s interest in sacred architecture, spirituality and politics provoked his analysis of light patterns on March 20, 2003 when the U.S. first attacked Iraq. He combined his empirical observations and personal reflections with the movement of sunlight through a historically-accurate digital model of a mosque in ruins – and thus he conceived theIllumination project.
BravinLee’s presentation is a prequel of sorts, allowing the viewer to see and experience the genesis for Illumination I. Previously exhibited at the Rothko Chapel in Houston (November 2006), Illumination I will make its final U.S. appearance at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum before heading to Cologne in 2008. The unveiling at the Rothko Chapel marked the first time in its history that The Rothko Chapel invited an artist other than those involved in its original creation (painter Mark Rothko, artist Barnett Newman, and the architect Phillip Johnson) to exhibit a work of art on its grounds. “This genre-defying work blurs the boundaries between architecture and sculpture and functions as much as a place as it does an object,” explains Aldrich exhibitions director Richard Klein.
Illumination I is always installed with its open side facing east, toward the rising sun; it stands over 20 feet high and weighs more than 22,000 pounds. Illumination I reveals once again its relationship to the phenomenon of light and the artist’s interest in sacred architecture. The hybrid sculptural object was designed with the use of hi-tech software programs, including digital photography, computer modeling, and CNC milling. It is composed of fiberglass and resin, with a final coat of traditional, hand-applied stucco, combining sophisticated industrial production with painstaking ancient craftsmanship.
A catalog is available with an introduction by Christopher Rothko and text by David Anfam.
The CD Michael Somoroff Illumination, composed by Robert Rich is available.
Both exhibitions are sponsored by: Rhein Design and Mill Creek Capital Advisors, LLC.
Note: At 2pm on June 24 at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, there will be a dialogue between Michael Somoroff and art historian David Anfam. Admission will be free and open to the public.
About Michael Somoroff
Michael Somoroff’s mediums of choice include photography, installation, filmmaking, writing, and a variety of “new media” technologies. He is represented in many important collections, a sampling of which include the Museum of Modern Art; New York (AICP), The Houston Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas; and The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C. His work has been included in museum exhibitions around the world, including ICP The International Center for Photography, New York City; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago; The Frankfurt Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany; and “The Great Color Exhibition” of 1986, curated by Manfred Heiting in Koln, Germany. He has participated in gallery exhibitions in New York and abroad, including the major international art fairs. He is the creator of the Matrix Art Collective, a full service art production facility in the New York City metropolitan area and a long-standing member of the Directors Guild of America. http://michaelsomoroff.com/
About BravinLee programs Off Site
Following up on the success of last summer’s Studio in the Park, 11 public art installations in Riverside Park, BravinLee programs seeks to bring work out of the traditional gallery space, off-site and into the public arena. The gallery remains committed to focusing on drawings and works on paper in their space at 526 West 26th street. Summer hours: June: Tuesday-Saturday 10-6; July: Tuesday-Friday 11- 5; August: Tuesday-Friday 12-5. 212.462.4404 www.bravinlee.com
About The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is one of the few non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States. Founded on Ridgefield’s historic Main Street in 1964, the Museum enjoys the curatorial independence of an alternative space while maintaining the registrarial and art-handling standards of a national institution. Exhibitions feature work by emerging and mid-career artists, and education programs inform adults and children about the importance of connecting to our world through contemporary art. The Museum is located at 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT 06877. For more information call 203.438.4519.
Transportation information
Free bus transportation is available for Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum members from New York City to the exhibition reception (non-members $15). The bus departs New York City at 1:45. Please note that the bus will not arrive in time for the Panel Discussion. Call the Museum for reservations at 203.438.4519.
Free round trip bus service from the Katonah, New York, Metro-North Railroad station to the Museum in available throughout the duration of the exhibition. Show your MTA ticket and receive free admission to The Aldrich! Visit www.aldrichart.org for more information.
May 1st, 2007
