The Half Of A Moon
July 19- 26
Opening July 19, 7pm
Dress Shop Gallery
322 Troutman St Brooklyn, NY 11237
The half of a moon is what we see when we say the moon is full. Even in the period of apparent wholeness and completeness, there remains the half that is unseen, present and unacknowledged.
The Half Of A Moon immerses itself in the nature of a conversation, the possibilities and limitations of different languages and mediums, embracing that which can only be spoken through silences.
The installation documents a conversation between a poet and a painter in two chapters. The first chapter, accumulated from personal intention alone, is the initial expression that opens a space, that invites a reply. The second chapter then exists in that space as a reply, meeting the changes that occur in the mind engaged in listening.
The two chapters of work, as the entirety of a conversation, come together in the space without chronology. And though the whole conversation is on view, there remains the half that stays invisible.
Kaitlin Rees (USA) and Sara Gassmann (Switzerland) first conversed at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel residency in Shanghai, China in 2016. During this time, a collaboration arose from their shared interest in stretching the role of language in artworks. As a poet and translator from the Vietnamese, Kaitlin Rees’ work is based in the materials of language, with a specific interest in the voice and recording human speech as it exists on the boundary between different languages. Sara Gassmann’s paintings deal with materiality and transparency. She explores process, form and color, which manifest as recurring elements in her work. She describes each painting as being guided by the flow of its own production, which is sometimes smooth and sometimes a fight.
