I went to the Kelly Nipper exhibition at Anna Helwing Gallery before it recently came down. I enter the darkened space through drapes over the back gallery glass wall. On the left and right entry were a series of six photographs of mechanically produced choreography diagrams. While the choreography is based on the work of dance artist and theoretician Rudolf Laban from the early 20th century, as a photographic work, these images served to freeze frame the performative nature of the video I was about to witness. They seem cursorily produced from vast and important research for the work, but are still a good addition to the show. I also appreciated the connection between the photograph serving as a still-frame from a cinematic production based on a performance.
Within the main space were two seemingly identical video projections on opposite walls from each other. A dancer standing in front of a black wall performed a slow circular hip rotation in a black leotard. The leotard blended with the black wall resulting in the image of a decapitated head and bear arms motionlessly floating above her pale gyrating hips. Upon, closer inspection one notices that the movement is faster in one of the two videos and the seriality of the project is cracked.
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer has written about the video on her Artforum Pick, so I will move to the sound booth sculpture…
Also, in the main space, but snaking its way toward an alcove behind one of the video walls, was a sound recording booth. A brilliant sculpture in minimalist tradition, the approximately five-foot square booth was open on one side to reveal a low platform covered in Mylar used for drum heads resting below a mobile made of wire and oval ice. As the ice slowly melted, an amplifying system connected to speakers in the alcove broadcasted thunderously loud thumps recorded by microphones under the platform.
My knowledge of the basis of Nipper’s decisions is vague, but reading the press release introduces the thought of “the hurricane as a form of unmeasured movement presented in relation to clock-time, human emotion, and the science of meteorology.” As storms generate precipitation higher in the atmosphere as ice that melts and falls as rain, the conceptual force of the sculpture is the most cogently strong thing I’ve experienced in art this year. Brava to Kelly Nipper for her outstanding performance.
I understand the work will be re-installed at ArtBasel Miami Beach this December. I highly recommend it there as this work will probably next be seen in a museum or (unfortunately) tucked away in a collector’s vault or private home.
