Liz Wendelbo
OPTICKS
November 19th – December 20, 2010
Opening Reception Friday November 19th 6-9pm

Image courtesy of Liz Wendelbo

MICROSCOPE Gallery is pleased to present – as our 3rd exhibition – artist Liz Wendelbo in her first solo gallery showOpticks. The French/Norwegian is a Brooklyn-based artist working primarily with photography and film and is a member of the analog electronic duo “Xeno & Oaklander.” Opticks features photographic prints, Polaroids, and works on paper related to Wendelbo’s new abstract 16mm film series ‘Opticks XVIII, XIX, XX – Sets & Lights’ – shown at the New Museum in October – which is also on display.

Inspired by the early light and color experiments by physicists Isaac Newton and J.C Maxwell, Wendelbo describes her work as a stripped down fetishistic comment on film-making as a process. In an effort to comprehend their complex color and light theories, Wendelbo re-enacts and deconstructs Newton’s and Maxwell’s color experiments- through practice, with the hand and through the body.

With a film camera registration test chart as the subject, the films are analog experiments in color and light. The works emphasize a direct ‘live’ approach to the filming process. Color and lighting effects are created in-camera, with superimposition. The works are shot with a 1955, 16mm H-16 Bolex camera. The technical limitations of the camera – 15 second takes, 3 minute film rolls, and unstable mechanical registration as well as the film itself become part of the work. We see the flash frames, the grain and the trembling of the film surface. Captivated by the fetishistic appeal of the gear – the camera, the film, the backdrop and the lights, Wendelbo creates an abstract work and proposes an opening, a door to a narrative, to fiction. Her photographs, works on paper and booklets are physical extensions of that universe. Publications by Liz Wendelbo and Nathan Antolik will also be on display.

Wendelbo’s work has previously exhibited at Artist’s Space, Andrew Kreps Gallery, White Columns, Elizabeth Dee Gallery and others.

Opticks runs from November 19th to December 13th.
Opening reception, Friday November 19th 6-9pm.

For more info, visit the artist’s website: http://www.lizwendelbo.com