Monday March 14, 7:30pm
YES: Antonia Kuo & Lily Jue Sheng
16mm films, videos, and live performance
artists in person
Still from “Aegyptia” (Lily Jue Sheng, 2016) – image courtesy of the artist
Microscope presents for the first 2016 edition of our emerging series YES artists Antonia Kuo and Lily Jue Sheng in a program of individual and collaborative 16mm films and performative works made by the artists during the past three years including the premiere of a new film by Lily Jue Sheng.
Many of the works – which include double projection, stop motion animation, optical printing and various dark room processes – reference and respond to elements of the natural and terrestrial, from flora and fauna, to electromagnetic and cosmic energy. The medium of film itself is also of concern in many of the works in which hand-made collage and other compositions are made directly on each frame of the filmstrip and the usual spatial relationship between frames becomes split-second mutations appearing before the viewer’s eyes.
The roughly 40-minute program concludes with a new iteration of their live dual projection piece “Point Line Plane” involving black & white abstractions obtained via contact printing, seen through live color gel manipulations by the artists.
$7 general admission
$5 students with ID
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Antonia Kuo (b. 1987, New York, NY) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY working with photography, film, drawing, painting and printmaking. She received her BFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts University, and a one-year certificate from the School of the International Center of Photography under the Alan L. Model Grant. Antonia was awarded the Robert and Stephanie Olmsted Award as a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2014, and participated in additional residencies at The Banff Centre, Center for Photography at Woodstock and Arteles in Finland. Her work has been shown internationally, including exhibitions in New York at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, Ryan Lee Gallery, Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, and abroad at Alte Poste in Vienna, Galerie Catherine Putman in Paris, Gloria Maria Gallery in Milan, and West Bund Art and Design Fair in Shanghai. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at Museum of America books in Brooklyn, New York and will be an artist-in-residence with Lily Jue Sheng at Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto this summer.
Lily Jue Sheng (b. 1987, Shanghai, CN) makes moving images with film, video, and live performance. She graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, and is currently based in Queens, NY. Her work has exhibited internationally at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in Montreal; the Bibliorium at Beijing Design Week in Beijing; and the 1933 Slaughterhouse in Shanghai. She is a 2016 Queens Art Fund New Work Grant awardee and will be an artist-in-residence with Antonia Kuo at Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto this summer.
Program:
Seeing Double (2013)
by Lily Jue Sheng & Antonia Kuo
16mm color to HD video, dual projection, 2 minutes 45 seconds
sound by Asha Sheshadri
“Seeing Double” is a stop motion collage animation that exploits the frame-by-frame structure of film within the fleeting pace and temporality of an immersive optical experience. A series of flickering compositions explore the cycles inherent in all scales of biological matter, ranging from flora and fauna to terrestrial topographies. The geometric, yet nebulous forms reflect the dichotomy between the imposed order and erratic flux of nature.
Chromaflux (2014)
by Lily Jue Sheng & Antonia Kuo
16mm color to HD video, 8 minutes 13 seconds
live sound by Mike Sidnam
Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions of electromagnetic energy found in space. ‘Chromaflux’ utilizes stroboscopic plasma and LED abstractions to replicate the spectacular effects of cosmic afterglow.
Mercurial Matter (2015)
by Lily Jue Sheng
16mm color to HD video, 6 minutes 7 seconds
live sound by Mike Sidnam
“Mercurial Matter” combines a sequence of botanical studies with macroscopic panoramas of floral textiles, posters, and photographs using the traveling matte optical printing technique to composite two 16mm films. The film employs transposing, graphic configurations to collage the elements together. Algorithmic cycles examine the aura and artifice of horticulture.
Cataract (2014)
by Antonia Kuo
16mm black and white to HD video, 3 minutes 50 seconds
live sound by Mike Sidnam
“Cataract” captures views of the forest shot through translucent ink paintings. The hand-processed film ebbs between textural, painterly abstraction and glimpses of natural landscape.
Force Majeure (2015)
by Lily Jue Sheng
16mm, color, 5 minutes
sound by Mike Sidnam
‘Force Majeure’ is an experimental medley of traveling matte accidents, variables, and mistakes that rework imperfections into an ocular spectacle. Rather than allowing the special effect to serve its invisible illusory purpose, the camouflaged image is consciously revealed, giving rise to alternate and lucid dimensions.
Aegyptia (2016)
by Lily Jue Sheng
16mm black and white, sound, 4 minutes
A collection of Bedouin folk sounds and images from Giza and el-Bahariya.
Mashup (2014)
by Antonia Kuo
16mm black and white, silent, 2 minutes 35 seconds
“Mashup” animates and re-purposes original drawings, paintings and photographic prints, cutting between images to create a fluid and kinetic engagement between the works.
Point Line Plane (2015)
by Lily Jue Sheng & Antonia Kuo
16mm black and white dual projection, optical sound, 11 minutes 4 seconds
“Point, Line, Plane” is a dual projection that pairs positive and negative photograms made by layering printed transparencies directly on the film surface, creating hypnotic arrangements with analogous sound generated from images overlapping onto the optical track. The live performance features color gel manipulations by Lily Jue Sheng and Antonia Kuo.
Still from “Cataract” (Antonia Kuo, 2014) – image courtesy of the artist
Microscope Gallery Events Series 2016 is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).
With the underwriting support of the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation.
