ON AIR
Exhibition with Phillip Andrew Lewis at 820 Liberty, Pittsburgh / On view until December 15th 2024 / Commissioned by The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
Exhibition of new work including five sculptures, a feature-length video The Wind, and the public artwork A Sudden Gust of Wind.
“There is no photograph of the wind.
The wind has prompted and ended wars, dispersed seeds and caused famine, facilitated animal migration, and physically shaped our surroundings. Despite being experienced by every being everywhere, it remains invisible to us. We perceive the wind only by its effect on other things: bending grasses, shaking trees, drying washing, holding flags aloft, spinning weathervanes, filling sails. The works in On Air explore this unseen force. Throughout the gallery, air currents are harnessed to activate, inflate, scatter, and interfere with things. The rear portion of the gallery features “The Wind”, a new long-form film meticulously constructed from over 1,000 clips featuring wind scenes sourced from other films–ranging from romcoms to westerns to spy dramas and horror movies. Typically, a b-list presence, wind footage in films often foreshadows imminent, often ominous change or provides an emotional or temporal cut or transition. In “The Wind,” these overlooked moments accumulate in an increasing intensity according to the Beaufort Wind Scale, progressing from barely perceptible quivering plants to a tornado that tears a building from its foundations. On Air was developed in dialogue with A Sudden Gust of Wind, a newly commissioned public artwork also by Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, featuring two hundred kite sculptures installed in trees throughout Downtown Pittsburgh. (Look out of the window).”
From the exhibition text
