DARA FRIEDMAN

The exhibition includes more than a dozen new works conceived specifically for this presentation. In Star People, a series of gracefully towering, mirrored shadow figures reflect light and the gaze. Some dangle sun-like brass gongs from their fingertips. The impossibility of a reflective shadow creates a sense of wonder. Others offer an opaque darkness, covered with black felt, the double entendre of the material intentional. Shadows and mirrors are both literally “flat” yet have endless depth. They are infinities. The liquid reflecting forms contain the condensed semiotics of light and vibration. Friedman invokes the Pleiades star cluster and its associations with kinship and passage between realms. In_Golden Hand (Night Journey of the Sun)_, an elegant brass arm is visible, either emerging or disappearing from view. Alligator Eyes (Hill), a sculptural carpet installation shaped like a low hill or the eyes of an alligator peering above the water’s surface, invites viewers to recline and be supported. In the film Gong Camp, suns rise and set, overlapping and intermingling with the light seared edges of twirling cloth-draped figures, gongs reverberating throughout. The surrealist trope of humor darts throughout the exhibition.