Adam Putnam - Magic Lanterns
December 9 - February 25, 2012
Opening Reception & Artist Talk: Friday, December 9, 5-8pm
In this exhibition, New York-based artist Adam Putnam offers three surprising and evocative explorations into the experience of physical space. His Magic Lantern installations use a 19th-century theatrical technique of projecting light through painted slides. By using bulbs suspended in translucent boxes Putnam projects ethereal architectural interiors on empty gallery walls; complete with doors and endless corridors. Putnam's meticulous graphite on paper drawings of abstracted cathedral-like sculptures feature erotized cavities and protrusions, including arches, buttresses and crenulations. In photos of his startling contortionist performances, Putnam implausibly folds his six-foot-eight-inch frame into tiny spaces, including cabinets and bookcases. As the everyday experience of space is challenged by the synthetic environments of the online world, the cumulative effect of Putnam's work is to capture and question our disorienting and mutating sense of physical space. Putnam's work was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum, NY.
