To date, Elad Lassry’s practice has revolved around cultural conditions surrounding photography and, more specifically, the question of when the photographic image obtains presence—becoming at once a kind of material object and display for viewers’ projections. In Untitled (Presence), Lassry extends such an inquiry into real space, producing not only an exhibition but also a performance featuring ten dancers from the American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet. If decades ago a generation of artists suggested that we necessarily see the world through the pictures made of it, Lassry here takes such a proposition as a starting point for an expansion of the concept onstage, flattening perspectival depth through the super-saturated colors and bright, even lighting used in his pictures. To similar effect in the gallery, the artist deploys a system of walls with apertures designed to render space pictorial, prompting audiences to be newly aware of the intrinsic mediation of perception today and, possibly, to “reset” our ways of seeing.
Curated by Tim Griffin
Untitled (Presence) is made possible with generous support from the Rebecca and Martin Eisenberg Foundation, Carlo Bronzini Vender and Tanya Traykovski, David Kordansky Gallery, Artis, the Dedalus Foundation Inc., Office of Cultural Affairs Consulate General of Israel in NY, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.