Bradley Eros
eau de cinema: constellations & contradictions
June 13 – July 13
Opening Friday June 13, 6-9pm

Recent Press:
“Fine Art: Playing With Senses and Memory”, by Peter Plagens, Wall Street Journal

Microscope Gallery is extremely pleased to present the first solo exhibition of works at the gallery by Bradley Eros. eau de cinema: constellations & contradictions finds the seminal New York artist – who is recognized for his work with multiple mediums, both the concrete and ephemeral, and as a force behind numerous collaborative endeavors – in pursuit of the essence of the artistic impulse.

The exhibition is an elaboration on Eros’ eau de cinema, a concept he has been developing for several years and has now extended to the mediums of film and video installation, photography, sound, collage, sculpture, drawings and other works on paper, some as collaborations including those with members of the expanded cinema & sound group Optipus, which will be added during the course of the exhibition. For eau de cinema: constellations & contradictions, Eros assumes as his starting point the moving image, specifically works on celluloid film in which the actual work is an ephemeral by-product of the physical materials, requiring a projector and light to be viewed. He suggests that much like perfume, film is an experience that lingers in both space and memory.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a sculptural installation positioned as a duel between analog & digital media, or rather “a duet of the centuries”, as it is titled. In this work, a sculptural film projector throws celluloid images onto a flat screen monitor while a video projector is aimed at a movie screen and the cinema apparatus opposite it. A translucent glass stands between them, layering together found and original images on the production of a mysterious “eau de cinema” perfume – an actual scent created by Eros – with images of silver particles of light, forming a dialogue of contradictions between the mediums, two kinds of projected light.

“eau de cinema is an attempt to contain the uncontainable, to bottle the essence of poetic thought and accident, as a perfume of the creative act. It is also memory driven by an irrepressible mourning, the way scent is linked to both loss and longing. Like cinema, it is both material and immaterial, an apparatus and the experience of light and time. It is disappearance and the obsolescence, of not only technology and culture, but also hybrids and beautiful mutations coming alive. “ — BE

The “eau de cinema” fragrance will be on view in a special flacon designed by Eros – as well as on the exhibition’s “perfume tester” postcards – evoking an experience of presence and absence, that which is happening now and that which will be disappearing or and eventually missing. Elements to be completed during the month of the exhibition are silk screen prints, a book, a cassette tape release, a curated screening, and an expanded olfactory cinema performance. A series of digital ads, trailers and posters will also appear at various off-site locations.

One final element will be an homage to a friend and artist, whose loss long ago has remained a source of inspiration and provocation to the artist. His work will appear in the exhibition as “a love letter lingering in the ether”.

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BRADLEY EROS is a Brooklyn-based artist working in multiple mediums. His works have exhibited and screened extensively in the US and abroad including at The Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum’s series The American Century, MoMA, The Andy Warhol Museum, MoMA PS1, Camden Arts Center (London), Anthology Film Archives, Arsenal (Berlin), Participant Inc., The Kitchen, Performa09, Exit Art, White Box, LMAK Projects, and The New York, London and Rotterdam Film Festivals. Collaborations include the Alchemical Theater, the band Circle X, Voom HD Lab, and the expanded cinema groups kinoSonik, Arcane Project and currently Optipus.

For additional information please contact the gallery by email at inquiries@microscopegallery.com or by phone at 347.925.1433.

Bradley Eros
eau de cinema: constellations & contradictions
On view from June 13 through July 13, Opening Reception Friday June 13, 6-9pm
Hours: Thurs through Mon, 1-6pm