There is no denying it: Red is having a major moment this fall. From crimson lips that pack a punch on the runways and the streets to the the gorgeous locks of Karen Elson in the H&M ads, the bold color of the season seems to be everywhere we look.
During the DUMBO Arts Under The Bridge Festival, red again took our breath away.
Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen have filled the Dumbo Arts Center with their enormous site-specific installation The Experience of Green that emphasizes the contrast between the organic and the built environment. Viewers will step out of Dumbo’s stark brick-and-glass commercial district into a fantastical forest; a walk-through labyrinth of old growth trees made entirely from red kraft paper. The spectacular network of gnarled tree trunks and twisted roots will extend over every inch of the gallery, suspending the boundaries of space and time while fully immersing the viewer.
The Experience of Green is Kavanaugh and Nguyen's most ambitious work to date, as well as the artists’ first major debut in NYC of their ongoing collaborative series of visually phenomenal, meticulously crafted paper installations. Here, the staggering volume of paper that the artists stack, splice, layer and coil is in a brilliant crimson, burning an impression in the viewer’s mind. The Experience of Green may come most clearly into focus only after viewers exit the gallery, the color persisting as an optical after-image, accentuating the relationship between experience and memory, landscape and longing, nature and the sublime.
The work is exception and as beautifully constructed as an Alexander McQueen or Rodarte gown, but on a much larger scale. Go and experience it while holed up inside one fo the trees. A full-color catalog with accompanying essay by Jen Schwarting, will be published by DAC in December, 2009.
The Experience of Green runs from now through November 29, 2009
Gallery hours are Wednesday - Saturday from 12pm (noon) to 6pm
DAC | 30 Washington Street in DUMBO | See the site below for more details
