EXHIBITION: a site-specific indoor/outdoor sculptural installation by
NINA LEVY
DATES: February 23rd - March 24th
HOURS: Saturday + Sunday, 1 - 6 pm, and by appointment
OPENING: Saturday, February 23rd, 3 - 5 pm
LOCATION: EYEWASH@HOLLAND TUNNEL*
at 61 South 3rd St., Brooklyn,
"more than I would say about most people" is a site-specific sculptural installation that
responds to the unusual nature of the Holland Tunnel Gallery's exhibition space, a white box-style gallery constructed
inside a small freestanding gardening shed in South Williamsburg.
This piece addresses the intimate quality of the building through an Alice in Wonderland style distortion: A female figure towers over the building, her unclothed lower body (made of plaster, steel, urethane foam,
automotive paint), lodged in the private space of the gallery. Her upper body (resin, steel, urethane foam,
automotive paint), dressed to withstand the elements for an outdoor exhibit in late February, rises from the
roof of the shed.
As in Nina Levy's other sculptural and photographic work, this piece uses a figure that is based on her
body as a stand-in for an everyman, or everywoman and is altered through distortion, shift in scale, and
fragmentation.
Ms. Levy says "I am interested in creating a piece that allows an ambiguous reading. The figure is large
and overbearing, but is also trapped and exposed. The aspirations of the sculpture seem to exceed the box
of the gallery, but it is not clear that the outcome is positive. Similarly, the upper body is divorced from the
lower body, separated into public and private selves. The act of self-exposure is an ambivalent one -- the
public outdoor self is distant, and perhaps cold and disapproving; the lower body is comparatively
unreserved. On a literal level, "more than I would say about most people," refers to the fact that the piece is
considerably larger than life-size, and more anatomically revealing than I would care to be in most
instances. In essence, I am "saying" more than I would in most any case. And, while the piece is not really
an image of myself, it is based on my body, and I would probably not presume to present anyone else in a
similar fashion, i.e. as a huge person with no pants. Perhaps the title reflects my mixed feelings about self-presentation."
Nina Levy has exhibited at Peter Miller Gallery in Chicago, and at Terry Dintenfass Gallery, Frederieke
Taylor, eyewash Gallery and I-20 in NYC. She lives and works in Williamsburg.
*eyewash, was started in June 1987 by artist/curator Larry Walczak on the 3rd Floor of a turn-of-the-century residential building in Williamsburg. Having lost that space, since January 2002 it has been a
"migratory gallery," either collaborating with other galleries, as with this exhibition, or producing shows in
borrowed or otherwise temporarily acquired spaces. It specializes in showcasing emerging and mid-career
artists from Brooklyn.
F O R F U R T H E R I N F O R M A T I O N
See images of the installation at ninalevy.com/new.htm,
or email Nina at nslevy@aol.com
Please contact Larry Walczak at 718 387 2714 or larryeyewash@earthlink.net; eyewash.cc
Paulien Lethen at 718 384 5738 or hollandtunnel@hotmail.com;
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