Andrea Galvani & Mathias Kessler at Y gallery, New York

"In Cold Blood" by Andrea Galvani & Mathias Kessler 
Y gallery, New York >>September 11–October 8, 2013
Curated by Cecilia Jurado

Andrea Galvani; Higgs Ocean #7; C-Print mounted on aluminum dibond. 39.4 x 57.52 inches framed; Edition of 5 + 3 AP;Courtesy of the artist and Y Gallery New York

Y Gallery presents "In Cold Blood"  a selection of works by Italian artist, 

Andrea Galvani, and Austrian artist, Mathias Kessler curated by Cecilia Jurado. The two artists have traveled to the coldest confines of the planet where they confronted the overwhelming grandiosity of nature. For instance, by illuminating large parts of icy landscapes, they tried to conquer an otherwise unreachable place. Only to reveal how a journey as ambitious as these can solely manifest extraordinary attempts through 

significant works. Galvani has used photography for his project. We witness an existentialist trip charged with loneliness and fascination by discovery. Kessler has chosen digital renderings, photography and a mirror that melts and freezes while the spectator sees his/her image being reflected. This last work, the mirror, could synthesize the nerve of the exhibition. The seeking of truth in the vain of explorers of the past could 

be an introspective trip to unknown sides of our human condition. In his Higgs Ocean series, Galvani programmed an excursion executed off the coast of the Svalbard Islands in the Arctic Circle. The project was developed with the assistance of a team of New York-based, Russian engineers over the course of a four-month period. Solar photovoltaic modules were used to collect the daily dosage of light energy 

produced by the sun over a 2,800 km sail. The amassed electricity was then used to power a flashlight generating a beam of light over 200,000 ANSI lumens, with strength enough to break through earth’s atmosphere. The unimpeded light will travel infinitely in space, and thus, in the words of Galvani, “the luminescent memory of the journey had been returned to the universe.”

Mathias Kessler’s project entitled, Islands of Time, entailed the artist’s travels to IIulissat, Greenland where the Jackobshaven Glacier meets water level, emerging as an archipelago of icebergs. Kessler photographed the quintessential landscape exposing the duality between our quest for the taintless environment and tarnish as a denouement of its discovery. The Sea of Ice is a 3D photorealistic rendering of a painting by the 

German-Romantic artist, Caspar David Friedrich. In relation to Kessler’s breadth of work and the historical parameters surrounding Friedrich’s painting, the context of this digitally conceived rendering questions the principles of a painting in times of cybernated manipulation and how fantasy can become reality via photographic representation. It Will Blow Over (Worldview of the Arctic) provides viewers with an increased corporeal association with the sensational elements experienced by the artist and his team while 

pursuing these projects. As the mirror continuously cycles through the process of melting and freezing at -22°F, the unbridled, crystallized patterns progressively evolve, similar to the never-ending changes in life, intrinsic to life’s nature.

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