Friday, July 4, 2014

swooning..

Have you heard of the artist named Swoon? She is not to be missed. Natalya here to tell you about Swoon's exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. It was a spur of a moment visit, I only had my iPhone to take pictures with and I took a gazillion. No worries, it was painful, but I edited them down to just a few...

You do have until August 24th to go see this for yourself, but in case that doesn't fit into your summer schedule, here's a brief review and many links. Caledonia Dance Curry is quite an accomplished artist who started with traditional training (she attended my Alma Mater Pratt Institute), but after graduating was very discouraged with the gallery system and became a street artist. She has managed to fashion an amazing career from that start and is now an artist with exhibits all over the world. She known for her installations and this is her latest at the Brooklyn Museum.

I had never seen her installations before, just have heard about her and seen a bit about her in a documentary film Our City Dreams. Needless to say that I was completely overwhelmed by what I saw and I'm sure Kristin can confirm that my jaw was on the ground. The scale of this installation is immense and cannot be expressed in these photos. Do see the videos in the links above to get a sense of the scale.
plastic drop cloth (my heart fluttered). Swoon used the drop cloths that protected the walls during the installation in the installation.
gigantic tree draped in cloth and lacy cut outs for leaves is at the center and made for very dramatic shadows
cardboard tubes in a beehive like hut
a collage of larger than life prints of her beautiful drawings
delicate cut outs are draped on the floor where they curve and produce wonderful shadows
here are the tree roots, so you can see the fabric
more amazing drawings
two large handmade boats are part of the installation (made from scraps), but I was fascinated by the lace sails and the shadows they made
my kind of whimsical
this is a top portion of one of the boats
lacy cut outs cover many walls and backs of large figures
Hope you do get to see this exhibit, it's worth the trip! And happy Independence Day USA!

2 comments:

Leslie Tucker Jenison said...

Absolutely fantastic! Thanks for the great post!

Kristin L said...

I am so glad I got to see that show with you Natalya! I am absolutely in love with Swoon's work. My jaw was dragging on the floor right along with yours!