From Sept 23 through Oct 30, 2011.
Carol Jazzar presents David Rohn’s new installation and performance “Small, Medium, Large” in the main gallery and ” Forever Babies”, an exhibition by Colby Katz in the project room.
Small. Medium, Large is concerned with hierarchy and perception, and the way these relate to collective and personal dissolution. Taking a cue from the iconic nearly square and peaked roof house-like structure of Carol Jazzar Gallery, Miami artist David Rohn has constructed 2 replicas of the building. One replica is exactly half the existing structure, and the other structure is exactly half of that.
Inside a series of stepped-down videos reveal the artist as a live, ventriloquist’s dummy. Silent, the dummy is accessible, but not immediately visible behind a partition at the rear of the full-sized primary gallery space. However, an audio track recites a 30-minute loop of a slow motion rant wherein each word is pronounced as if disconnected to the words preceding and following it, resembling an electronic series of sentences and statements in which food, water, art, paper, health and law are mentioned.
Similar to a TV talking head, the dummy’s image is projected onto a wall in the main space just outside the partitioned area. A video cam at the rear captures the space and the TV image, which are projected onto a screen in the second space. Here another video cam picks up that image, projecting it onto the third and smallest space. The viewer thus experiences an image of an image of an image of a live event, which takes place behind a wall. The image of leering mute dummy is projected down a series of ever descending versions of itself. Each version dilutes itself into a more distant but wider series of similar descending spaces.
All 3 spaces are identical but each is half the size of the one before. Within each space exists a perpetually rocking chair stenciled with eagles, a roll of wallpaper printed with sheep and an armed soldier’s silhouette, oval portraits of more dummy types, a small table and a ‘product’ such as an aluminum can.
The hierarchical representation of information, progressing from large, medium to small reveals the re-representation of the event with each event becoming further removed from the actual event. Eerily, the silent dummy becomes emblematic of the contrived passivity of the misrepresentation of information.
David Rohn holds a BFA from NYC and a MFA from Pratt Institute, NY. He also attended Colgate University and L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. During the early 90’s Rohn moved to Miami where he began creating interactive performance characters. His work has been exhibited in various galleries and institutions, including the Tampa Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida.
In “Forever Babies” by Colby Katz cute babies lying down on soft and colorful blankets are looking at us. Looking closely, we notice certain strangeness. They are dolls, made of vinyl and created specifically to replicate a baby that has passed away. Similar to the post mortem memorial photographic images popular at the end of the 19th century, these dolls serve less as a reminder of mortality than as a keepsake to remember and mourn the deceased. They are, Forever Babies…
Colby Katz is a Fine Art and Documentary photographer. Her work focuses on American culture from sideshow performers and backyard fighters, to the quirky innocence of small town beauty pageants. Her photographs give viewers a glimpse inside worlds many rarely get to see or even know about.
Colby Katz holds a BFA from NYU and is currently finishing her MFA at the University of Miami, FL. Her work has been exhibited in many galleries and museums around the U.S. and abroad including the Miami Art Museum, The National Media Museum, Bradford, UK, the Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, the National Portrait Gallery, UK, Michael Foley Gallery, NY, and Air Gallery, NY. She is a two-time recipient of the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship and was recently a finalist for the Schweppes Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England.
Carol Jazzar
158 NW 91 Street
Miami, FL 33150
www.cjazzart.com
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