May 1, 2017 - June 1, 2017
ATA Window Gallery Presents:
Lindsey Filowitz: Active Death
May 7 – June 1, 2017
Closing Reception: May 28th, 7-9pm
I am pleased to present “Active Death,” an installation at the Artists’ Television Access Window Gallery from May 7 – June 1, 2017. A living still life that will transform minute by minute, it begins with a lavish display of fresh flowers and immature fruit, which will ultimately turn – growing green mold, cloud-like fluff, petals devoid of their moisture, and an aroma unpleasantly ripe.
This work reveals that the marvel of pleasures is due to their ephemeral nature. Many questions are raised: What is beauty if not that which is natural? What is death if the result is rebirth? What is photography if not about the passing of time?
A scene not dissimilar from one found in a 16th-17th Century European painting, I have re-considered the purpose of a classical still life. The Dutch Golden Age was period where art no longer solely represented Christianity, but rather rendered naturalistic tableau. In turn, photography also demonstrates a moment as it is and was.
Hung in the background of the installation are adjunct still lifes of mixed media, with work by yours truly, Mark Filowitz, and Hannah Hughes. The vase in Mark Filowitz’s 1990 painting holds the floral centerpiece exhibited, as does his drawing study. A closer look on the walls behind will reveal several referential clues. My photographs displayed are excerpts from a project about falling in and out of love that revisits the motifs of flora and food, both metaphors for sexual desire, relationships, life, and death. These themes structure the narrative of the project: the natural objects slowly rot and shrivel away paralleling a relationship doomed to fail.
The installation will be documented regularly through its process of decay. With the camera acting as a tool that can preserve the mortal, the resulting photographs are evidence that new beginnings often follow loss.
I hope that you all can witness the fruits of my labor, ever-changing from beginning to middle, and eventually end.
Mark Filowitz is an artist and musician from Brooklyn, NY. Hannah Hughes is a photographer based in Oakland, CA, whose work focuses on memory.