Katherine Bauer
Cinematic Death Moon Return: Impact Phase
July 20 – August 26, 2018
Opening Friday July 20, 6-9pm

Preparations for “Cinematic Death Moon Return: Impact Phase”, 2018, detail.
Image courtesy of Katherine Bauer and Microscope Gallery



Installation Views

Microscope Gallery is very pleased to present “Cinematic Death Moon Return: Impact Phase”, the 3rd solo exhibition of works by Katherine Bauer at the gallery.

The exhibition is the final phase of Bauer’s three-part project “Cinematic Death Moon Return” featuring installations, 16mm film, sculptures, and photographic works inspired by the closing of an upstate New York cinema that refused to convert to digital projection and reflecting a mythological and alchemical account as proposed by Bauer of the history of our planet intertwined with that of cinema. The works in the show incorporate the materials and equipment salvaged from the dismantled theater and reference the often proclaimed “death of film”, a death the artist considers as fictional as those acted by the protagonists of the big screen.

The title piece is a large-scale installation featuring moon vines coiled around hanging celluloid filmstrips, a silver 23-foot projection screen, moon flowers and other plants, crystalized 35mm projectors, and other objects all under an illuminated moon made from a 35mm film platter. These plants, which belong to the nightshade family, were often consumed throughout history by healers, shamans, and “witches” in various cultures during lunar rituals to induce dreamlike states.

Bauer will activate the installation over the course of the exhibition through two performances also based on components of her myth: the Moon generated from Earth in a primordial explosion; during the industrial revolution – of which cinema was a product – minerals were massively quarried from the Earth, altering the planet’s magnetic composition; as the quarries filled with water, moon flowers and other night-blooming plants that extract metals from the soil began to attract the Moon back to Earth.

The exhibit also marks the debut of the 16mm short film “The Vanishing Lady”, a loose narrative work shot and edited by Bauer who also performs rituals and various cinematic deaths along with other female “starlets” at locations including an abandoned theater, various bodies of water, and a trash dumpster full of discarded moving image equipment.

Other works include assemblages of crystalized projectors and their parts, other mixed-media sculptures, and photographic works including hybrid analog chromogenic prints/photograms, and photograms created during her “Impact Phase” performance. Part one “Forest Phase” and Part Two “Frozen Phase” both took place in Catskill, NY during the past year, the first as a performance installation, the latter as a private performance for film.

The exhibition “Cinematic Death Moon Return” by Katherine Bauer runs from July 20th through August 26th, 2018, with an opening reception on Friday July 20th, 6-9pm. Performances in conjunction with the exhibition will take place on August 3rd and August 24th.

Gallery hours: Thursday through Monday, 1-6pm, or by appointment. For any additional information please contact the gallery at 347.925.1433 or by email at inquiries@microscopegallery.com.

Still from “The Vanishing Lady” (2018) by Katherine Bauer, 16mm film, silent, 17 minutes 27 seconds – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery

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Katherine Bauer works primarily with celluloid film and the cinematic apparatus in works encompassing the practices of sculpture, photography, installation and live performance. Much of Bauer’s work involves mythologies, folklores, and narratives as told through the means of obsolete technologies. In addition to Microscope Gallery, her work has exhibited at Participant Inc., NY; Shoot the Lobster, Dusseldorf, Germany; Immanence Gallery, Paris, France, and others. Bauer’s solo exhibitions have been reviewed in Artforum, photograph magazine, and The Village Voice, among others. Her 2017 solo exhibit “Cinematic Death Moon Return: Forest Phase…” in Catskill, NY appeared in Artsy among their “Favorite Shows of 2017” and she was selected among the “Three Artists at NADA New York Who Are Reinventing the Photogram” in Artspace in 2015. Bauer received a ESP TV Unit 11 residency (2017), a Cité Internationale des Arts Paris Residency (2012-13), and a Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Foundation Fellowship (2012-13). She holds a BA in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College and a MFA from NYU Steinhardt (2013). Katherine Bauer currently lives and works between New York City and Hudson, New York.

Still from “The Vanishing Lady” (2018) by Katherine Bauer, 16mm film, silent, 17 minutes 27 seconds – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery


Still from “The Vanishing Lady” (2018) by Katherine Bauer, 16mm film, silent, 17 minutes 27 seconds – Image courtesy of the artist and Microscope Gallery