The River of Migration - KIND OF GREEN - Yi Gallery

KIND OF GREEN

Yi Gallery

191 Henry Street, NY NY 10002

June 1-11, 2019



Opening reception Saturday, June 1, 3-6 pm



NEW YORK - A group exhibition comprised of art and design works by Anne Katrine Senstad, Si Jie Loo, Jamie Martinez, and Studio Roosegaarde will be on view starting June 1st, 2019. Society is faced with climate change, pollution, rising sea levels, and massive ecologically driven migration. Many sustainable lifestyle theories advise people to “buy green,” invest in a “clean” car or only eat organic food. But is it wise to rely on consumerism to provide a solution to the very problems it has helped create? In this interdisciplinary exhibition, artists and designers think beyond “eco” art made from recycled materials or projects that simply paint an apocalyptic scene in order to address the urgent and ongoing ecological challenges the planet is faced with. The exhibition will be on view from June 1st to June 11th every day from 11am to 6pm at 191 Henry Street, New York, NY. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, June 1st from 3pm to 6pm.


The River of Migration

Single channel video


The first incarnation of Anne Katrine Senstad's memorial piece, The River of Migration, existed as a large outdoor light and land installation at Life is Art Foundation in 2010. The piece consisted of 72 solar-powered lights placed along a mountainside in Santa Rosa, CA. They formed a symbolic “human river” on what was historically Mexican land. Each of the 72 lights refers to a specific case where a person was brutally massacred by cartels after refusing to be used as a drug trafficker. Using light to create a memorial, Senstad illuminated the urgent migration issue with her symbolic river of light. The project honored the 72 nameless souls who died during the migration process and simultaneously spoke for all victims of migratory violence. The solar panel lights were lit from dusk till dawn, when most people cross borders illegally, and illustrated the very nature of the migratory action. The lights created a geographical mapping of the California landscape and served as a gestural, lyrical, and critical comment on migration policies, border wall politics, and the intensifying climate and political refugee crisis. Unnatural deaths of migrants are intimately connected to climate change and resource enclosures fueled by the growth of global wealth inequality.  It is critical to revisit this work today as it raises awareness of the new, and more elaborate, forms of human trafficking as a global business as well as the financial structures on which it capitalizes. 

Editors Pick Artnet May 13, 2019

Beckoned to Blue installation views

SL GALLERY
335 w. 38th street 

NY NY 10010

BECKONED TO BLUE
ANNE KATRINE SENSTAD

April 3 - May 31, 2019 
Tuesday - Friday 11 am - 6 pm
Saturday by Appointment 
info@sl.gallery

Elements III

Neon light sculpture - immersive installation, 2019

​

The exhibition’s centerpiece, "Elements III" defines the environment as luminous blues that envelope the fabric of our cognitive body. Made up of monochromatic squares of light defined by an inner blue spectral vertical portal centered in the space, the viewer experiences the interior and exterior light sculptures, resonating through prismatic frequencies. The immersive quality offers the viewer a dialectic between center and horizon—the sculptural light composition enveloping us with a sense of the infinite. Senstad’s cosmology of spacetime and light beckons you to a matrix of horizontal and vertical expressions of blue light, evoking fractal topologies. In space, distance is the present—the horizon extending far beyond our frame of reference as blue columns of light ascend to the empyrean. Senstad’s interpretation of blue as physical environment is informed as much by the artist’s curiosity about the emotional, physiological, and scientific phenomena that constitute our concept of color as it serves her lifelong desire to capture the impossible beauty and sensorial properties of color in the abstract.

Beckoned to Blue

HD video, 18:32 min, 2019

​

Senstad’s sensory chamber installation represents the internal geography of the viewer’s physical self. Here, the installation brings the public into an architecturally reductive private chamber, echoing the internal - the physiological and psychological experience of the work. Playing on a 18:32 minute loop within the chamber, the video work, "Beckoned to Blue," travels through compositions in multiple hues of blue. The accompanying sound piece for the video, "The Well-Tuned Marimba" (1976), composed and performed by electronic sound pioneer and mathematician Catherine Christer Hennix, creates sparkling spatial sensations between the gravity of Hennix’s keyboard, sine-wave generator, and the Sheng - a traditional Chinese polyphonic reed instrument that merges Hennix’s ocular minimalist sound with the aural color spheres evident in the video. 

I have broken the blue boundary of color limits, come out into the white; 

beside me comrade-pilots swim in this infinity. I have established the 

semaphore of Suprematism. I have beaten the lining of the colored sky, 

torn it away and in the sack that formed itself, I have put color and knotted it. 

Swim! The free white sea, infinity, lies before you. 

Kasimir Malevich, Suprematism, 1919

Photographic Work

Included as part of the exhibition Beckoned to Blue, are 

works from two bodies of work; Color Kinesthesia, 2012 

and Universals Foldouts, 2013. 

Senstad's photographic works examine the properties of light 

and color in relation to time, spatial relations and volume. 

Color Kinesthesia has previously been exhibited as part of 

Senstad's exhibitions at Zhulong Gallery in Dallas, TX, 

FineArt in Oslo, Norway, Airmattress Gallery, New York and 

Octavia Art Gallery's spaces in both New Orleans and Houston. 

Sizes: 50x60 inches and 30x40 inches.  

Please contact info@sl.gallery for more info on these works. 

Beckoned to Blue - SL Gallery

ANNE KATRINE SENSTAD Beckoned to Blue Opening reception: Wednesday, April 3, 6–9pm April 3 to May 31, 2019 SL Gallery  335 West 38th Street, New York

Color embodies the universal; ascending light represents the connection with the universe, while horizontal lines can remind us of the open landscape, the sea merging with the sun, perhaps internally experienced as a sensation of tranquility and eternity.  - Anne Katrine Senstad

SL Gallery is pleased to present Anne Katrine Senstad’s new solo exhibition Beckoned to Blue examining the essence of the color blue, presented in three parts: Elements III - Blue - an immersive light sculpture installation in the main gallery space; a sensory chamber installation with a sound piece by Catherine Christer Hennix; and a set of accompanying photographic works featuring blue in an exploration of dimensionality.

Elements III – Blue defines the environment as luminous blues that envelope the fabric of our cognitive body. Made up of monochromatic squares of light defined by an inner blue spectral vertical portal centered in the space, the viewer experiences the interior and exterior light sculptures, resonating through prismatic frequencies. The immersive quality offers the viewer a dialectic between center and horizon—the sculptural light composition enveloping us with a sense of the infinite. Senstad’s cosmology of spacetime and light beckons you to a matrix of horizontal and vertical expressions of blue light, evoking fractal topologies. In space, distance is the present—the horizon extending far beyond our frame of reference as blue columns of light ascend to the empyrean. Senstad’s interpretation of blue as physical environment is informed as much by the artist’s curiosity about the emotional, physiological, and scientific phenomena that constitute our concept of color as it serves her lifelong desire to capture the impossible beauty and sensorial properties of color in the abstract.

While Elements III – Blue explores the immensity of space, Senstad’s sensory chamber installation represents the internal geography of the viewer’s physical self. Here, the installation brings the public into an architecturally reductive private chamber, echoing the internal - the physiological and psychological experience of the work. Playing on  a 18 : 32 minute loop within the chamber, the video work, Beckoned to Blue (2019), travels through compositions in multiple hues of blue. The accompanying sound piece for the video, The Well-Tuned Marimba (1976), composed and performed by electronic sound pioneer and mathematician Catherine Christer Hennix, creates sparkling spatial sensations between the gravity of Hennix’s keyboard, sine-wave generator, and the Sheng - a traditional Chinese polyphonic reed instrument that merges Hennix’s ocular minimalist sound with the aural color spheres evident in the video. Senstad has collaborated with Hennix with on several exhibitions. 

The Elements series began in 2018 as a commissioned immersive light sculpture installation for group exhibition Through The Spectrum at Athr Gallery in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in collaboration with Pace Gallery and Cruz-Diez Foundation, alongside artists James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Leo Villareal. Elements II was created for the exhibition Scene Unseen - On Nordic Art and Design at He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, China, curated by Feng Boyi and Norwegian curator Bjørn Inge Follevåg.

This marks Senstad’s first solo exhibition with SL Gallery. Beckoned to Blue will be on view from April 3 through May 31, 2019 with an opening reception on April 3 from 6–9pm. SL Gallery is located at 335 West 38th Street. Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Friday 11am - 6pm , Saturday (by appointment), closed Sunday & Monday.

Beckoned to Blue is supported by The Royal Norwegian Consulate General New York.

Anne Katrine Senstad was raised in Singapore and Norway and received her art education at Parsons School of Design, The New School for Social Research in New York, and Berkeley University in California. Her practice lies in the intersections of architectural installation art, photography, video art, neon sculpture and site specificity within the language of chromatic minimalism and light environments. For several decades, her practice has been focused on the phenomenology of perception of light, sound and color. She has exhibited internationally in galleries, museums and institutions including the 55th and 56th Venice Biennale (Italy), Bruges Art and Architecture Triennale (Belgium), He Xiangning Art Museum (China), Kunsthall 3,14 (Norway), Trafo Kunsthall (Norway), Octavia Art Gallery (New Orleans + Houston), and Zendai MoMA (China). For more information visit www.annesenstad.com.

SL Gallery was established in 2017 by architectural lighting designer and consultant William Schwinghammer. The mission of the gallery is to present works that merge contemporary art, lighting and new media technologies, providing support for the diverse creative practices of emerging, mid-career and established artists within the community. With over 30 years in the architectural lighting industry, Schwinghammer is heavily inspired by visual art, design, and lighting on the edge of concept. He has worked on a number of high-profile commissions including the restoration of The Ritz in Paris, The Woolworth Building in New York, and Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street, as well as Leonardo da Vinci’s Fire and Water Codex world exhibition (in collaboration with Christie’s New York) and the lighting of Vincent van Gogh’s 150-year exhibition Vincent’s Choice in the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam. The artists selected to showcase at SL Gallery are an extension of Schwinghammer’s vision and have included Fabrizio Corneli,Aleksandra Stratimirovic, Sean Capone and Karen Gunderson. For more information visit www.sl.gallery.

Follow the conversation on Instagram @sl.galley @annesenstad #beckonedtoblue

For all media inquiries please contact State Public Relations, Ryan Urcia at ryan@statepr.com and Kristina Ratliff at kristina@statepr.com, or call 646-714-2520.

For SL Gallery, contact Tony Long, Director at tony@sl.gallery or 212-967-5945