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Inaction
Inaction 2011
Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present INACTION, an exhibition of new work by Siebren Versteeg. This will be our third exhibition with the artist. Occupying the intersection between algorithmic programming and painterly expression, “Inaction” presents a space that folds the gestures of the hand into the automation of the computer and collapses the moving image into the still. Inspired by Vilem Flusser’s “Into the Universe of Technical Images”, Versteeg focuses simultaneously on the production of new visual information as well as the unique historical conditions that drive artists toward abstraction as creative undertaking. The exhibition begins with a direct address to the digital screen. In “God made the earth in small circles,” Versteeg blinds the gallery’s glass front with an enlarged backlit image of Gerard Richter’s pixilated Cologne Cathedral that he gleaned from the Internet. Rather than the pigmented color of stained glass, however, this flattened scrim depicts exclusively through the additive values of red, green, and blue; thereby illuminating the mechanics of a computer monitor and it’s affects to perception. In homage to the Chicago fall’s waning sun, a spotlight positioned outside the gallery will provide illumination for the work on opening night. The surrounding walls will debut a selection from an ongoing body of digital abstractions which navigate the interstices between code-based automation, alchemy, and ritualistic determination. Through mimetic rendering the viscosity, reflections, and transparencies of what we traditionally accept as painterly, Versteeg creates an aesthetic space that foregoes the info-matic in favor of elucidating the balancing parameters of an ever increasing myriad of variables.
More Images of Inaction