Carol Jazzar is pleased to present David Rohn new installation and Performance Small, Medium, Large. This will be Rohn’s third exhibit at the gallery.
In 2008, Rohn presented Marry Me (Western Union); the artist appeared atop a giant wedding dress, his veiled head at the 14’ ceiling rafters, in communication only through a live video feed from outside the gallery. Whispered words from 16th century Mystic Saint Teresa of Avila emanated from the skirt, and a ring of milk continuously pumped from tub to tub at its base.
For his second exhibit, Archetypes, Rohn’s builds around central concepts such as ‘Union’ or ‘Archetypes’ and uses spatial relationships, iconography, photography, video, and his own interactive presence to explore the significance of themes he sees as central to life experience.
Small. Medium, Large is concerned with hierarchy and perception, and the way these relate to collective and personal dissolution.
Taking a cue from the iconic nearly square and peaked roof house-like structure of Carol Jazzar Gallery, Miami artist David Rohn has constructed 2 replicas adjacent to the iconic near square and peaked roof of the house-like configuration of Carol Jazzar Gallery. One replica is exactly half the existing structure, and the other structure is exactly half of that.
Inside a series of stepped-down videos reveal the artist as a live, ventriloquist’s dummy. Silent, the dummy is accessible, but not immediately visible behind a partition at the rear of the full-sized primary gallery space. However, an audio track recites a 30-minute loop of a slow motion rant wherein each word is pronounced as if disconnected to the words preceding and following it, resembling an electronic series of sentences and statements in which food, water, art, paper, health and law are mentioned.
Similar to a TV talking head, the dummy’s image is projected onto a wall in the main space just outside the partitioned area. A video cam at the rear captures the space and the TV image, which are projected onto a screen in the second space. Here another video cam picks up that image, projecting it onto the third and smallest space. The viewer thus experiences an image of an image of an image of a live event, which takes place behind a wall. The image of leering mute dummy is projected down a series of ever descending versions of itself. Each version dilutes itself into a more distant but wider series of similar descending spaces.
All 3 spaces are identical but each is half the size of the one before.
Within each space exists a perpetually rocking chair stenciled with eagles, a roll of wallpaper printed with sheep and an armed soldier’s silhouette, oval portraits of more dummy types, a small table and a ‘product’ such as an aluminum can.
The hierarchical representation of information, progressing from large, medium to small reveals the re-representation of the event with each event becoming further removed from the actual event. Eerily, the silent dummy becomes emblematic of the contrived passivity of the misrepresentation of information.
David Rohn Small, Medium & Large runs concurrently to Colby Katz Forever Babies.
Carol Jazzar Gallery is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 1PM to 6PM or by appointment.
158 NW 91 Street, Miami Florida 33150 305 490 6906 www.cjazzart.com |
