Event

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David Cunningham Projects

March 12 - April 19, 2009

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http://www.davidcunninghamprojects.com/

1928 Folsom Street San Francisco, CA 94103

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DCP (David Cunningham Projects) is pleased to announce “Duality”, an exhibition of new works by Los Angeles based Irish artist Simon Reilly. For his first solo exhibition with DCP Reilly has conceived an installation occupying both rooms of the gallery utilizing video, photography and sculpture. ‘Duality’ is comprised of three separate, yet thematically linked works – ‘Shroud,’ ‘Tornado’, and ‘Cause and Effect’. In ‘Shroud’, a diorama provides an objective view of an overgrown, crumbling town, partly obscured by waves of fog. More subjective views glow on two monitors, reflecting viewpoints from inside two of the town’s derelict structures, eyes peering at one another through the miasma. From further within, another perspective: the voices of the last two remaining inhabitants of the town are heard. As they troll through their experiences - present and past, their musings overlap, intertwine, but never coalesce. In ‘Tornado’, video images of two German Shepherds stand guard over a manmade tornado. Projected on a nearby wall is a digitally altered image of the same whirling column. A phalanx of guard dogs is seen in close up on tiered rows of video monitors, an incessant wind howls throughout the room. The dogs are sphinx-like sentries - noble protectors of an obscure symbol of an obsolete order. Unswervingly loyal, their presence now far removed from their original task: they stand guard over a reproduction, a flawed image of nature's power, for the tornado is a man-made, machine generated flume of smoke and light, a replica. Yet, at the same time, the vortex itself is physically present, and it is the guardians themselves who are virtual. In ‘Cause and Effect’ a stone is thrown from a precipice down to a river. We witness the action on two monitors: one shows the stone being tossed, the other shows the waiting vessel of the water below. Time does not obey the laws we expect, and the splash is not immediate. The two images continue to drift further out of sync with one another, the interval between the action and the result stretches until finally the result precedes the action. In this new body of work Reilly connects several seemingly nonsensical narratives through his use of historical and contemporary metaphors for natural forces to address age-old questions about our relationship to nature and the forces behind it. Our futile attempts to harness or exert control over these forces often result in flawed replications of nature’s power. The interventions of the human hand are increasingly evidenced in new synthetic, manipulated and reproduced versions of nature and order – ‘stand-ins’ that never quite succeed in matching the real thing. Simon Reilly is an Irish artist currently living and working in Los Angeles. He has exhibited extensively in Europe and has a long association with Italy where he lived for many years. He has shown with Betty Cuningham Gallery in New York, Galerie Jan Wagner in Berlin and Studio Legale in Naples, Italy. His work has recently been shown at Walter Reade Theater, New York, Festival de L’image, Paris, Diva, Miami and Bridge Art Fair, New York. His work is included in many important European and Irish collections, both public and private. Initially recognized as a painter he has in recent years produced a consistently strong body of video based work. His work was included in ‘Strange Weather’ the inaugural exhibition at the DCP project space in 2007. This is his first solo exhibition with DCP.