Louviere + Vanessa
Exquisite Collaborations:
Concerto da camera
Opening: Friday, July 1, 5 - 7 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: July 1 - Sept. 10, 2011
CONCERTO - originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere
(meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is
that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra, alternate episodes of opposition,
cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.
Andrew Smith Gallery at 122 Grant Ave., Santa Fe, NM 87501 next to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is pleased to introduce New Orleans multimedia artists Jeff Louviere and Vanessa Brown to Santa Fe. Known artistically as Louviere + Vanessa, the couple have been collaborating on photographs, films and multimedia prints since 2004. They are regarded as among the most innovative, emerging artists in America with over 50 exhibits and film fests to their credit. "Exquisite Collaborations: Concerto da Camera"opens Friday, July 1 with a reception for the artists from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibit continues through Sept. 10, 2011.
Louviere + Vanessa have created a fascinating hybrid of photographically generated prints and objects from an arsenal of antique and modern technologies. Unlike so much contemporary photographic work that merely documents or constructs events as technically proficient but artistically inferior digital prints, Louviere + Vanessa's art works transcend imagery. Instead, they craft exquisitely beautiful objects rich in physicality that are also supremely intelligent.
Louviere + Vanessa have invented a process of printmaking that generates a similar luminescence to that found in historic orotones or goldtones. They call their process Photo Noyée, which translates as "drowned image/photo," to describe how photo-derived imagery, gold and other materials are encased (i.e. “drowned") in resin. Images are printed on very thin, handmade Japanese "Kozo" paper that virtually disappears when resin is poured over it. Thus they appear to be suspended within glass. Louviere + Vanessa invented Photo Noyée when they were working on the series "Instinct/Extinct" (2008-2010). They used it again in the silver leaf photographs from the "Folie à Deux," series, as well as in their most recent body of work, "Counterfeit" (2011).
The focus of the exhibit at Andrew Smith Gallery is the "Counterfeit" series. For this body of work Louviere +Vanessa acquired paper money from countries around the world, selecting and enlarging from each bill picture fragments of tigers, people, birds, guns, dogs, horses, insects, architecture and statues. These images were then "drowned" in resin. The cracked and pigmented surfaces of the translucent pictures are like unfamiliar mythologies encoded in stained glass.
Like latter-day Dada artists Louviere +Vanessa draw upon an astonishing range of disciplines that inform their work including art theory, theater and film, performance art, politics, current events, psychology, literature, dreams and fantasies. Their tools and materials have included wax, 8mm film, gold leaf, Photoshop, scanners, decayed negatives, Holga cameras, dead birds, photosynthesis, toning prints with blood, and a stain made from tea and the "undrinkable" New Orleans water. For subject matter they have photographed taxidermy manikins, skulls, nudes, currency, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In one piece for the series "Folie à Deux," (French for "shared madness”) Louviere + Vanessa started with a photo of skulls from the Parisian catacombs. According to Jeff Louviere, "We shot a picture, gridded it out and cut it into 3,550 individual stills and shot each one on one frame of super 8. We had the film developed and transferred to DVD so it could be seen as a movie, then we cut the physical film strips into one-foot sections and built custom LED lightboxes for them." When the original filmstrips were laid in vertical rows within the handmade light box, a pixilated version of the skulls appeared, embellished with stripes of light from the home movie sprocket holes. Even the box was painstakingly constructed by hand. Louviere + Vanessa called the finished works "cinegraphs" to describe vintage processes being spliced to cutting edge digital technology.
They are also fearless about working very large. Their works range from 16" x 20" on the small side to over 50" x 80." Years ago Jeff Louviere and three other artists created the world's largest painting -- a 76,000 square foot image of Elvis that was included in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Another innovative aspect to "Exquisite Collaborations" is the inclusion of QR (Quick Response) codes on the art works that will instantaneously link viewers with compatible camera phones to movies, artist’s statements and other information about the works. A QR code is a barcode readable by some camera phones that allows contents to be decoded at high speed. (This act of linking from physical world objects is termed hardlinking or object hyperlinking.) Viewers can scan QR codes to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page.
Selections from earlier bodies of work on display include "Slumberland," (2004 - 2005), "As If" (2004 - 2007), "Instinct/Extinct" (2008 - 2010) and "Folie à Deux" (2009).
Louviere + Vanessa create their work in editions of 25 or less.
Liz Kay