Opening: Saturday August 5, 2023 | 11:00am – 5:00pm
On view: Fridays – Sundays until August 27 | 11:00am – 5:00pm
KODA/RU House, #404B Colonels Row | Click here for access to Governors Island
Click here to view the online brochure
Microbiologist Lynn Margulis stated in the gaia hypothesis: “the sum of all life on the planet behaves as a single integrated physiological system. The traditionally viewed ‘inert environment’ is highly active, forming an integral part of the Gaian system.”
Encounter by the RU local artist Roxane Revon presents an “evolutive” solo exhibition aimed at engaging a dialogue between Governors Island’s active layers of life and matter and the artist’s own intimate experience of the place. Working in a studio space at the KODA/RU house, Revon looks at transforming the instability of outdoor conditions and in-progress work into an aesthetical experiment that welcomes precarity, movement and spontaneity. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “tikkum olam” concept, which, in Judaism, refers to an action intended to repair and improve the world, Revon’s resulting exhibition will evolve over the course of a few weeks as it deconstructs the land’s elements (endemic seeds, rocks, minerals, wood, organic waste) and rebuilds it in experimental artworks that will transform the space.
Encounter is also the title of an outdoor series of evolutive mycelium artworks developed by Roxane Revon together with the designer and architect Kamilla Csegzi for the SMACH biennale in the Dolomites where they were selected as finalists. Revon is thrilled to develop their concept further by creating indoor mycelium shapes based on her wandering on Governors Island.
Click below to see more images from the program
About
Roxane Revon is a multi-disciplinary artist intrigued by the interdependence between species and more particularly between humans and vegetal beings. She grew up in France and studied philosophy at La Sorbonne University before moving to New York a decade ago where she started her artistic career and continued her education. For a decade, she has been working as an award winning stage director and scenographer while, more recently, developing multimedia installations and large drawings. Through an anthropological and philosophical approach, refusing to use the term “Nature” to refer to the non-human environment surrounding us, she plays with the transparency of reused transparent materials to form ever growing pieces in which human and plant are inevitably intertwined. She follows a methodical process (mapping underground ecosystem, germinating, photographing, and sketching a variety of plant roots) to unveil vibrant lines and abstract patterns that spread throughout her work, forming a wander that gets the audience into another temporality.
