Julia Kent in concert
November 7, 2009 at 7pm
The Invisible Dog
51 Bergen St, Brooklyn
(f /g train to Bergen Street)
No Longer Empty is pleased to announce a special concert by cellist Julia Kent at The Invisible Dog on Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 7pm.
The concert has been organized in conjunction with the exhibition, “The Invisible Dog: Something out of Nothing” which opened at the site in September featuring Thomas Bell, Ryan Brennan, Amanda Browder, Rosane Chamecki, Andrea Lerner & Phil Harder, Gina Czarneck, Jeanette Doyle, Steve DeFrank, Richard Garet, Guerra de la Paz (Alain Guerra & Neraldo de la Paz), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Kaarina Kaikkonen, Giles Lyon, Sara Modiano, Miguel Palma, José Parlá, Rey Parlá, Ian Rawlinson & Nick Crowe, Tom Sanford, Keith Schweitzer, Francesco Simeti, Alfred Steiner and Giuseppe Stampone.
The former factory floor of the one time belt factory and home to the original Invisible Dog, has been brought back to life with site specific installations which reflect both the history of the space and the oxymoronic construct of the Invisible Dog: a legend, a fantasy born out of almost nothing, a void object waiting for creative minds to make it come to life. Artists were given the opportunity to work with the many trimmings and belt material left at the factory and to engage with the architecture of the space.
Italian artist, Giuseppe Stampone transformed the former freight elevator into a major installation which evokes Charon’s boat. The boat of Homeric legend carried the souls of the dead across the river Styx which divided the world of the living from those of the dead. Stampone’s version carries the visitor through Dante’s Divine Comedy:–from the hell of the first floor the elevator follows Dante’s writing through purgatory up to the paradise on the third floor with Dante’s verses transcribed on the whole expanse of the shaft’s walls, replete with illuminated letters. The soulful sounds of Julia Kent’s cello accompany the visitor throughout this epic journey.
Julia Kent is a Canadian cellist, best known as an original member of all-cello group Rasputina. She left Rasputina in 1999 and has played cello with a variety of artists and ensembles since then, most notably Antony and the Jonsons. She released her first solo album, Delay, in 2007.
The concert will bring Julia Kent into the space for a performance that will begin in the elevator and be filmed by the artist to become an extension of the original piece. Ms. Kent will then perform in the main space at 7pm. Press are invited to attend the afternoon filming.
No Longer Empty (NLE) is a progressive group of curators and art advocates filling the city’s vacated storefronts and halted development sites with art specific to the location or the building’s history. Free of charge, NLE facilitates every-day interactions between art and the public, fostering a welcoming atmosphere and encouraging all to visit and to interact with the work. The attendant programming and children’s workshops expand the community outreach and interaction.
The Invisible Dog, a new three-story art center in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, is an exuberant example of the integration of forward thinking and care for the past. The art center, admittedly, had a leg up: its home came equipped with an irresistible history. Built in the late nineteenth century, the 25,000 square-foot factory went through a number of industrial incarnations before its owners struck gold in the 1970s with the invisible dog trick: a stiff lease and collar surrounding the empty space where a dog would be. A mixture of party-hearty silliness and tongue-in-cheek trompe l’oeil, the trick became an icon of its era. But eventually public taste moved on; meanwhile, over the years, the Brooklyn neighborhood was changing. The factory closed its doors in the late 1990s; the boarded-up building was a blight on its quiet Brooklyn block.
For more information, press kit and images, please go to
http://www.nolongerempty.com or
contact:
press [at] nolongerempty.com
