Monika Bravo
A Maze
20/02/2003 - 12/03/2003
Ciocca Arte Contemporanea
via Del Lauro 8 – 20121
Milano – Italia
tel. +39-02.86.46.31.67
fax +39-02.85.91.07.66
marco@rossanaciocca.it
www.sololab.com
A_Maze, 2001, installation view @SITE Santafe
ITINERARIES
Opening: Thursday February 20, at 6:30 pm
Ciocca Arte Contemporanea in Milan is pleased to announce the opening of
ITINERARIES, a solo exhibition of recent work by New York-based
Colombian
artist Monika Bravo. The show consists of the interactive video
installation A_Maze and two single channel videos Liquify and Wind-eye.
Sitting mutely, it is a quiet room, with a floor piece covering most of
the space and two projectors with mirrors standing pat. At its core is
a
DVD based suite of images and sound-by the DJ collective Flora &
Fauna-activated by walking on the sensitized sculptural mat. As its
title
implies, A_Maze revolves around a viewer activated video/sound
installation that was configured to resemble a labyrinth, which maybe
one
of the most recognizable Borgesean tropes. The labyrinth, for Borges,
was
a multifaceted metaphor that was a formal device as it was an occasional
leitmotif. Bravo seems to understand this quite well in that the Borges
poem is inscribed on a giant square in a labyrinth-like schema that
triggers a series of video sequences of landscapes and a host of other
imagery filmed around the world: one moment we are in Manhattan, in a
blink of an eye we are in Milan, Vietnam, Thailand, Tokyo, etc.
Liquify, is an elegant and thoughtful work, flat geometric forms, like
rectangles and bars, mingle with ease among organic references to nature
and atmosphere. Although each element seems to move individually, the
subtle modulations of shifting arrangements unifies the imagery into a
lovely balance of changing line, shape, color and mood. The adept fusion
of abstract surfaces with literal glimpses of nature allows for a
well-ordered, harmonious pictorial surface.
Bravo, in filming her video Wind-eye, was confronted with exactly this
dilemma: how to disrupt the rigid verticality of Time’s
Square’s woefully
commercial skyscrapers, without falling into the fashionable incoherence
of architecture as entropic ruin. Bravo’s response in Wind-eye is
to
organize the footage she shot into a series of amped-up split screens,
jarring mosaics, and revolving kaleidoscopes. Each cut is seamlessly
synched to the beat of an urgent, synthesized piano soundtrack. In its
almost frantic, delirious pacing, in Wind-eye, Bravo is focused on —
not
just the immediacy of a given place — but the simultaneity of Times
Square’s tidal wave of sense-data into a personal, flickering
moment.
