Spencer Finch
10 Dec 2005 - 28 Jan 2006
SPENCER FINCH
The Cave Of Making
December 10, 2005 – January 28, 2006
Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce the second exhibition of new works by Spencer Finch. The show will open December 10, 2005, and will be on view until Janurary 28, 2006.
Spencer Finch’s new show is entitled ‘The Cave Of Making’. Finch’s project at the gallery explores color, light, memory and perception. As in previous works, each project relates to the physical and historical particulars of a geographic area or site – in this case The cave of Lascaux and its sorroundings, and more precisly the colors and light that paleolithic man perceived at the exact moment of leaving the obscure atmosphere of the cave towards the natural light of day. Spencer Finch recreates this passage of obscurity to clarity in his new installation. He studies in closer detail the obscurity of the cave’s interior with the presentation of new works on paper : The Darkness Drawings.
In numerous other works Finch has explored similar instances in which our individual and collective perception is pushed to the limits by what looms before our eyes. Instances when you can only stare in disbelief, when you are blinded by the light or cast into darkness.
Finch’s works deal with notions of perception, the experience of time, always in the pursuit of an ineffable moment, a moment of connection where past and present, memory and experience, personnal desire and world history collide. Often meditating on the translation between the different senses, they combine poetry with modern technology. Through various media Spencer Finch, a constant traveler and scholar of history, confronts the dificulties of ‘’truly’’ representing a subjective experience. In many of his works the burden of memory often placed on photographs and language is transferred onto a less-considered and more interactive medium : light. Finch visits loaded, often empty, places where the residue of what happened there still resonates. Places like Los Alamos, New Mexico ; the city of Troy ; Loch Ness ; Cape Canaveral ; Tombstone, Arizona. Sites of disaster, loss, murder, war.
Darkness and light. Blindness and insight. Nature and science. These dichotomies arise in Finch’s work only to have their usefulness and validity interrogated. Spencer Finch’s unlikely approximations suggest that there are multiple ways of representing the world and commemorating our experiences on it. His installations challenge the idea that objectivity exists.
Spencer Finch’s works has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Portikus in Frankfurt, Germany, at Artpace in San Antonio, Texas and at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, and numerous group exhibitions including the 2004 Whitney Biennal at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and was included in ‘’Nothing Compared to This’’ at the Comtemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. He recently collaborated with the choreographer William Forsythe on the lighting for Three Atmospheric Studies, performed in Frankfurt and Dresden in April, 2005.
© Spencer Finch
SUNSET (South Texas, 6/21/03), 2003
18”x40’, fluorescent lights and filters
The Cave Of Making
December 10, 2005 – January 28, 2006
Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce the second exhibition of new works by Spencer Finch. The show will open December 10, 2005, and will be on view until Janurary 28, 2006.
Spencer Finch’s new show is entitled ‘The Cave Of Making’. Finch’s project at the gallery explores color, light, memory and perception. As in previous works, each project relates to the physical and historical particulars of a geographic area or site – in this case The cave of Lascaux and its sorroundings, and more precisly the colors and light that paleolithic man perceived at the exact moment of leaving the obscure atmosphere of the cave towards the natural light of day. Spencer Finch recreates this passage of obscurity to clarity in his new installation. He studies in closer detail the obscurity of the cave’s interior with the presentation of new works on paper : The Darkness Drawings.
In numerous other works Finch has explored similar instances in which our individual and collective perception is pushed to the limits by what looms before our eyes. Instances when you can only stare in disbelief, when you are blinded by the light or cast into darkness.
Finch’s works deal with notions of perception, the experience of time, always in the pursuit of an ineffable moment, a moment of connection where past and present, memory and experience, personnal desire and world history collide. Often meditating on the translation between the different senses, they combine poetry with modern technology. Through various media Spencer Finch, a constant traveler and scholar of history, confronts the dificulties of ‘’truly’’ representing a subjective experience. In many of his works the burden of memory often placed on photographs and language is transferred onto a less-considered and more interactive medium : light. Finch visits loaded, often empty, places where the residue of what happened there still resonates. Places like Los Alamos, New Mexico ; the city of Troy ; Loch Ness ; Cape Canaveral ; Tombstone, Arizona. Sites of disaster, loss, murder, war.
Darkness and light. Blindness and insight. Nature and science. These dichotomies arise in Finch’s work only to have their usefulness and validity interrogated. Spencer Finch’s unlikely approximations suggest that there are multiple ways of representing the world and commemorating our experiences on it. His installations challenge the idea that objectivity exists.
Spencer Finch’s works has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Portikus in Frankfurt, Germany, at Artpace in San Antonio, Texas and at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, and numerous group exhibitions including the 2004 Whitney Biennal at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and was included in ‘’Nothing Compared to This’’ at the Comtemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. He recently collaborated with the choreographer William Forsythe on the lighting for Three Atmospheric Studies, performed in Frankfurt and Dresden in April, 2005.
© Spencer Finch
SUNSET (South Texas, 6/21/03), 2003
18”x40’, fluorescent lights and filters