NOEMIE LAFRANCE: THE WHITE BOX PROJECT
Image: Noemie Lafrance, White Box, site-specific dance performance / ©Noemie Lafrance Link to Video: http://vimeo.com/32536028
PRESS RELEASE / FALL 2011
Black & White Gallery / Project Space launches its tenth season with the premier of The White Box Project, site- specific dance installation by Noemie Lafrance and Locus Communis, solo exhibition by Adam Niklewicz.
Though different narrative elements are important for each artist (the artist’s or spectator’s body for Noemie Lafrance and ordinary household objects for Adam Niklewicz), both aim to shift the production of the meaning of the artistic object towards experience through unique and unexpected artistic expression.
NOEMIE LAFRANCE: THE WHITE BOX PROJECT + selected dance films screening
Site-specific choreographer Noemie Lafrance, a mainstay of the Williamsburg arts community, best known for the epic Agora performances at the McCarren Park Pool, returns to Black & White Gallery/Project Space with an exciting new work, The White Box Project. Staged within the confines of the gallery’s ‘white walls’, the minimalist dance performance challenges the implied separation between the art object and its viewing subject. Bringing the viewer to an awareness of being while watching, this participatory performance contemplates transforming the act of viewing art into the artwork itself. The White Box Project is an evolutionary work renewing itself through the interplay of the immediate audience and their afterthoughts: each performance will culminate in a conversation between the audience and artists to further shape the choreography, poised to evolve and mutate over the course of the three weeks.
The evening of each performance will conclude with a screening of Lafrance’s selected dance film collection. Lafrance has been directing short dance films since 2007, works that were either inspired by live performances or choreographed only for the camera. The program includes Descent, Rapture, Eyes Nose Mouth, and Melt.
ADAM NIKLEWICZ: LOCUS COMMUNIS (commonplace)
Adam Niklewicz’s work thrives on misunderstandings. Much of his work in this exhibition plays with de- contextualization. The objects of his attention are ordinary utility objects such as tables, chairs and all kinds of things that have a role to play in the network of daily experiences that define the practical world.
Niklewicz arrived to the United States in 1980s seeking refuge from martial law in Poland. Indicative of a complex migrant experience of an in-between condition, neither fully Polish nor fully American, Niklewicz stands back and assumes a detached view of the objects, making obvious things odd by finding playful qualities along with clear and palpable symbolism. Such contemplative detachment translates into absurd situations suspended of practicality but with healthy dose of irony and humor – all communicated through mediums ranging from sculpture, video, installation and conceptual photography.