Blavatnik Family Foundation supports an art event at the Academy. May 17 – May 18, 2013 2 East 63rd Street, New York Open to the general public: Friday, 2 PM – 10PM; Saturday, 12 -10 PM
The End of Light – an art event at the Academy. The venue is an architectural gem and an Edwardian landmark that once housed the New York Academy of Science. Its grand neo-classical interiors serve as a backdrop to the two-day show featuring art installations and performances.The End of Light is a farewell to the mental frame of Enlightenment expressed through a variety of media.“…Yet from those flames no light, but rather darkness visible, served only to discover sight of woe.” John Milton, Paradise Lost
The End of Light presents a group of international artists, who channel their angst and postmodernist ambivalence into painting, sculpture, installation, performance, music, photography and video projection. The artists belong to different generations but they all share fin de siècle sensibilities. The “visible darkness” of our time, appealing to the artist’s intellect rather than his rational perception, becomes a common point of departure. The exhibit takes place in the grand old New York Academy of Science building, whose eclectic interior evokes the bygone age of Enlightenment, humanism, and veneration of science. The tension between the harmonious atmosphere of this neoclassical mansion and the liberal spirit of experimentation emanating from the exhibited works adds a layer of fine irony and dialectic complexity.
The artists featured are: Alexandra Dementieva (Belgium), Maria Ignacia Edwards (Chile), Anna Frants (USA-Russia), Pablo Garcia Lopez (Spain), Renata Jaworska (Poland), Alex Katz (USA), Lev Kazachenko (Holland), Vadim Moldovan (USA), Irina Nakhova (USA-Russia), Abram Nitsberg (USA), Julia Nitsberg (USA), Jamie Rubin (USA), Marcus Schwier (Germany)
The theatre performance “I Take Good Care of My Corpse” by Terra Incognita Theatre, under the artistic direction of Polina Klimovitskaya (USA), with actors Jeremy Goren, Jenna Kirk, Natalia Krasnova, and Renzo Rios.