Callicoon Fine Arts is please to present Summer, or Grief, a video work by Mary Lucier. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, June 5th, from 5 to 7pm. The exhibition will run until July 11th. The gallery is located at 27 Lower Main Street, Upstairs, in Callicoon, NY.
In the square gallery, Mary Lucier's Summer, or Grief (1998) is a single-channel video where words and short phrases appear as titles that alternate with light filled images. Filmed in and around the artist's home near Callicoon over the course of several summers, the imagery consists of stills, pans, tracking shots, and long pulls-to-focus of everyday subjects. Extreme close ups of dewy gossamer, meadow grass, dandelions and the rusted detritus of a bygone farm contrast with distant shots of horses, birds and trees--luminous details of a very specific place that have a near universal resonance. The text, an excerpt from "The Conversation" by poet Allen Grossman, is an eloquent but dark meditation on loss and the passage of time whose economy and syntax is extended by the imagery. The very different sounds of day and night time within the rural landscape are brought into sharp relief. The video ends with the delicate coming on of rain over the goldenrod, including the low, ominous rumble of thunder.
Mary Lucier, born 1944 in Bucyrus, Ohio, has worked in many mediums including sculpture, photography, and performance. Concentrating primarily on video and installation since 1973, she has produced numerous multiple- and single-channel pieces. Her work has been shown internationally in museums, galleries, alternative spaces, and festivals and is represented in many public and private collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and the Milwaukee Art Museum. She lives and works in Cochecton, NY.
Callicoon Fine Arts, founded in May 2009 by Photios Giovanis, is a gallery bringing an idiosyncratic mix of regional and international contemporary art to the Upper Delaware River Valley. The gallery was awarded the prize for Best Booth by a jury of three museum curators at the NADA Art Fair, Miami, December 2009. Callicoon Fine Arts acts in partnership with Nightboat Books, www.nightboat.org. For further information and for images please email info@callicoonfinearts.com or call 845-887-4202.