| Doug + Mike Starn: solo exhibit at the Armory Show and VIPs to Beacon |
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The exhibition, Big Bambú, is comprised of works related to a major installation by the Starns of the same name. The Armory Show exhibition offers a keyhole view of the monumental architectural performance they are constructing at their Beacon studio –the former Tallix Foundry. In a constant act of building and dismantling, Big Bambú is erected from 2000 bamboo poles lashed together by a team of several rock-climbers under the direction of the artists. 2 large-scale video wall-projections and a 3D computer generated rendering will show the ongoing construction of the first bamboo tower and its continuous rhizome-like growth. The relatively ephemeral state of Big Bambú, continuously cannibalized from within as it crawls forward, is recorded by the Starns into various scale photographic prints, pendant to the videos on the booth. A 5 x 15 foot photograph of the overall construction (which reaches 50 ft in height and has a footprint of 60 x 80 feet with an arch reaching another 40 feet), is composed of individual black and white inkjet prints on water color paper hand coated with clear gelatin; a natural and recurrent expression of the artists physical lexicon. Because of the enormity of Big Bambú, this artwork results from the stitching of more than 200 individual photographs, offering an omniscient point of view; the camera has become the “eye of God” capturing in linear multiple perspectives photographed alongside, vertically and horizontally, the evolving bamboo structure. The final artwork is a composite snapshot of the entire structure at one time… A series of close-up photographs in various sizes accompany this larger artwork. A new metaphorical development of Structure of Thought, the iconic tree and brain synaptic series the Starns have explored since 2001, will also premiere in this installation at The Armory Show. The artists have expanded their visual vocabulary introducing photographs of seaweed chosen for the fluidity of line. The collapsed depth of these colored images is also rendered on watercolor paper hand coated with clear gelatin; here as well, the Starns are Scotch-taping and pinning their works to the walls. The Armory Show has also chosen an unusual sculpture by the Starns to be a part of their series of selected artists’ installations. Located close to Wetterling Gallery’s booth in Pier 92, visitors to the show will be able to view Amaterasu, a mesmerizing kinetic sculpture first exhibited in 1994 at Leo Castelli. Named after the Shinto goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu is the Starns’ first sun machine, spinning chaotically with gyroscopic inertia, it emits 30 amps of halogen lighting through transparent photographs of the surface of the Sun, as well as through its personification in the face of Jungen Frau by Petrus Christus. The Wetterling Gallery wishes to extend a special thank you to the staff of the Armory Show and the office of cultural affairs of the General Consulate of Sweden in New York. For more information on the artworks exhibited by the Wetterling Gallery at the Armory Show, and on the Starns at large, please, contact: Simone Schmid at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or Björn Wetterling at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Visuals are available upon request. |
VIP guests of the Armory Show will be able to visit the actual installation of Big Bambú on Sunday March 8th in Beacon, New York. More information can be found at the Armory Show VIP desk.