The Art of Bardo Pond
Two members of a local band make more than music.
Baby got crack: Cut directly into the wall of the gallery, "Nuit" is one of the best pieces.
You may not know Bardo Pond members John Gibbons and Isobel Sollenberger as visual artists, but the couple—and their bandmates—have been making and exhibiting their shamanistic and mandalalike poured plaster art for years.
Rebekah Templeton Contemporary Art coaxed the reticent artists into a solo gallery show—their first in Philadelphia. And after about six weeks of installing—a pro-cess that included building two new gallery walls—the show is a pristine dream. Sensuous textures, smoky colors and ancient shapes evoke the mystical realms of deep space and the veil that separates daily life from unknown realms.
A show whose works call to mind Mark Rothko’s meditative paintings or James Turrell’s meditative projections, “Dechemia: Vessel Full” takes you to a zone where materials and metaphysics make magic.
Eight works dot the gallery walls like sacred objects from a shaman’s journey. While the works are mostly abstract, there are pieces that evoke the human figure and face. The entire show feels like a dialogue about the vulnerability of skin.
One of the most interesting pieces in this show is Nuit . The artists cut directly into the drywall of one of the gallery’s walls and poured plaster into the long, tapered hole, creating a smoky, mysterious and provocative work of art. Its color, texture and shape combine to create an illusion of a portal to another dimension. Quiet as a Stonehenge plinth, Nuit has a gravity that suggests it’s a tool for reckoning with the heavens.
Kepler Window is a grid of smoky gray squares. The squares obscure all but the edges of what appears to be a glorious golden sunrise in this piece, which takes its title from NASA’s upcoming Kepler Mission. As with all the artists’ works, Kepler Window has a delicacy of touch, which is seen through delicate plaster drips and paper edges kissing tenderly in front of a static background.
The evocation of skin, touch and all things human play off against elements—such as light, space and time—for which we are no match.
Space Phila takes the idea sideways. A tall, rope-coiled pot made of gray industrial foam stands in the window. Though it’s treated like an ancient artifact, this pot appears to be as high-tech as Kepler’s telescopes. The piece is made from materials NASA might even use in its missions. Peer into the bottom of the vessel and you will see a mirror reflecting your human visage, a small bit of color in the vastness of industrial space. ■
For more on the Philadelphia art scene go to theartblog.org
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
MORE
Article:
February First Friday Picks
Article:
"1967" at Locks Gallery Experiments With Political Facts and Fiction
Article:
"Zoe Strauss: Ten Years" Is a Poignant and Sometimes Chilling Look at Our City
Article:
Nick Cave's Sculptures Literally Come to Life in "Let's C" at the Fabric Workshop
Article:
PW Joins Artist Zoe Strauss in Bus Tour of Billboard Project
Article:
January First Friday Picks
Article:
Bill Viola's "Ocean Without a Shore" Confronts Death Head-on at PAFA
Article:
Philly Artists—Sick of the Mainstream Gallery System—Revive the Alternatives
1. katie2 said... on Nov 3, 2009 at 05:45AM
“love that piece shown, it is so graceful and unassuming”