2008-3-8 18:00:00 GMT-05:00
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BARE & BITTER SLEEP
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Ice Castles
Thoughts about our city's collective allegiance to "in-the-box" modes of production, display, and distribution were bouncing around my brain as I headed off to At First Sight II one cold night a couple of weeks ago. Chilean artist Denise Lira-Ratinoff had installed in a 16th street loading dock a series of light boxes and LCD screens that very simply, very elegantly displayed exquisite photographs of melting ice floes somewhere in or near Antarctica.
By Cinqué Hicks | Published: Thursday, 20 Mar 2008 | 1:01 PM
The photos where themselves impressive in their tonal qualities and were elegant in their commentary on both the majesty and fragility of our ecosystems. But I was grooving even more on the installation; the ballsy placing of the whole thing, installed right there in one of those peripheral cavities created by the city's digestive system. It's the kind of space that exists because it has to, not because anyone would particularly want it to. Lira-Ratinoff left the space raw, unadorned except for those beautiful photographs and the ambient sonic blanket of a soundtrack, all floating in an eerie blue-tinged darkness. (Unfortunately, the only way to get photos without a tripod was to flood the space with light and thus ruin the effect.)
Through her installation, the space became activated in two ways: honored for its native raw utility and transformed into something utterly otherwordly. The photos above in no way do justice to what has so far been the best art event of the year.