Why is there something rather than nothing?

Lisa Perez’s current exhibit, still even now, at the 5 Traverse Gallery is a meditative study in being and nothingness. The exhibit consists of small sculptural installations made of paper and wood. Her designs are poetic. They simplify the physical world without belittling it. Her best pieces are simultaneously microscopic and macroscopic. Organic grids and delicate squares cast shadows onto the gallery walls. These shadows define the physicality of each piece and in doing so aestheticize them. Yes, defined and aestheticized by shadows, which is to say defined and aestheticized by death and/or nothingness. Death is indeed the mother of all beauty, and thus the exhibit poses Heidegger’s famous question (paraphrased by Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane over the Sea”): Why is there something rather than nothing? How strange it is.

Perez responds to the question with an elegant boldness. Her perspective is multifarious, but she does not reduce the physical world to chicken-shit relativism. Her answer is this — there is neither nothing nor something (triple negative?). There is everything and it happens all at once, from every angle, from every standpoint. (More after jump.)

5 Traverse Gallery, exhibit runs through November 22, 5 Traverse Street

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There are lots of words and punctuation marks in the official title of the new exhibition “Pixilerations [v.6]: The Great Disruption” (part of FirstWorks festival which runs through November 15) like a technical handbook for the new normal. Yeah, so nobody is ever going to say all that, but it all looks pretty cool. The exhibition of films, videos and digital art kicks off tonight with simultaneous openings at 5 Traverse Gallery and the Kofler Gallery downtown (The Providence Journal says 6pm to 9pm, the Pixilerations site says it ends at 8pm). The robot jellyfish at Traverse has piqued my interest so I think I’ll check that out. (Correction — and thank you commenter — pictured here is The Empire an animated work Colin Williams, RISD MFA candidate.)

Openings start 6pm, Thursday, 5 Traverse Gallery at 5 Traverse Street/Kofler Gallery at 169 Weybosset Street

Only a few hours left today, and then tomorrow is the final day of the excellent exhibitions at 5 Traverse Gallery. Artist David Barnes (this work is oil on aluminum) takes images familiar to us from the world news and renders them unfamiliar and gloomy with livid, acidy tones.  In the next room is Cypheromantic, an installation by Michael Bizon who used found objects from the Olneyville area, including a wall of sound (picture after the jump) he constructed using speakers from an abandoned school. Talk about the shock of the familiar. (The show was reviewed here when it opened.)

Come meet David Barnes on Sunday between 2pm and 4pm.

Sunday last day of show, noon to 6pm, 5 Traverse Street more »

All the news that’s fit to paint

Tsunamis kill people in Bali. Car bombs kill people in Iraq. The Internet is killing newspapers. The major news networks report on these killings with state of the art sensationalism and hi-tech dehumanization. Rhode Island artist David Barnes paints this process and the result is benignly seductive.

Starting this Friday, Barnes’ work will be on display at the 5 Traverse Gallery. The exhibit runs until September 13 and you don’t want to miss it. To paraphrase NBC, this is Must See Art. The exhibition is a collection of watercolors and oil paintings based on video stills from the nightly news. In his three large oil paintings, Barnes depicts street scenes from the world’s most televised locations, places where the major TV networks can always bank on environmental and political catastrophe. Unlike the major networks, Barnes treats the subject matter with the utmost sensitivity and sensuality. He achieves this by rendering his victims and onlookers in serene blues and grays that I dare liken to Picasso’s blue guitar. His colors are poetic, whether depicting a mass of body bags in an Indonesian marketplace or the dusky hues of evening prayer in downtown Jerusalem. (more after jump)

Opening reception 6pm to 8pm, Friday, 5 Traverse Street

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Saturday is the last day of Collective Access, the exhibition of work by the 10 artists who run the AS220 Printshop, and many amazing prints are still available for sale.

It’s also the day the AS220 printshop artists are making pancakes silkscreened with chocolate designs — “watch with your own eyes as the master printmakers work their magic at our Silkscreened Pancake Brunch.”

Eat some art, buy some art. Only the first 100 to arrive can be served — get a number at the front desk. Pancakes silkscreened with chocolate will be served with coffee in the back garden from 11am to 2pm.

Saturday, 5 Traverse Gallery is open from 11am to 6pm (brunch ends at 2pm)

A new show opens tonight at 5 Traverse Gallery featuring the photographs of Scott Lapham (Sea Song) and the work of Jonathan Bonner (Pooms). What is a ‘poom’? Mr. Bonner explains,

There is now in existence a literary form known as the poom.  A poom is a poem that is one syllable long.  This exhibition has many iterations of the poom that include an eleven volume boxed set of accordion books, seven limited edition prints of poomagrams and poom embroidered baseball caps.  There are even pooms that you can eat.

Opening reception Friday 6pm to 8pm, 5 Traverse Street

There is another opening from 5pm to 9pm for ‘De/Construct II’ at 150 Chestnut Street.  Click here for more info and to see what a useless and annoying website looks like. And there’s a third opening before the above-mentioned music starts at 8pm at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket featuring three artists — paintings by Josie Morway, prints by Katie Truskoski and small sculptural work by Sarah Clover.

 What goes up must come down, particularly art.  If you can’t wait for the closing party of “Textual Nature” at Chazan next Thursday night, you can start tonight with a get-‘er-(ho)down* at 5 Traverse Gallery celebrating the closing week of two great exhibitions.

Jon Lautsen explores construction on a small scale.  I don’t know the title of the pictured piece, but it reminded me of his recent exhibit at the RISD Biennial Alumni Art Show in Watertown—elaborate for its size, and questioning both what’s present and what’s to come.  His current exhibit, “How to Hold On,” uses floors and walls of 5 Traverse to accomplish this task.

Magaly Ponce works with time-based media, typically combining videos, the web and installations to comment on anything from poetry to politics.  She is lauded for consistently exemplifying a love for both audio and visual images, and her installation, “From Remains,” magnifies tiny things onto large rice paper scrolls, accompanied with videos, to blow you away.

The festivities will be thoroughly enhanced by Tim O’Keefe’s fantastic DJing.

Tonight (Friday, 3/13), 5 Traverse Street, Providence, 7-9 p.m., free

*Sorry for making up stupid phrases like “get-‘er-(ho)down.”  My own title put that cursed Semisonic song in my head, and now I can’t think straight.  The actual title of tonight’s closing party is “End of Winter”—but last time The Dose flipped off winter, we got 11 inches of snow, so I didn’t want to tempt fate.

Only a couple of days left to visit the Tape Art Artaquarium at the 5 Traverse Gallery. Pictured here is one wall that artist Michael Townsend (you remember the apartment in the mall guy) and the rest of the crew are working on. It is being painstakingly manipulated and animated, and they will show you what they’ve got so far on the ‘puter. It’s quite beautiful. The walls of the other room are for everybody, kids very welcome. Stop in and help embellish the temporary, collaborative murals that are always a work-in-progress, and ask the gang about bringing Tape Art to your school, business, hospital etc.

Traverse Street is off of Wickenden Street across from Adlers