Nicky Assmann + Rotor, Acoràn, 2021, Video, 7’14”, single channel. Courtesy of the artists
Rotor + Nicky Assmann. Courtesy of the artists
Fridman Gallery presents the group exhibition Cities and Eyes, curated by Anouk Focquier, from February 28 – March 30, 2025. Cities and Eyes features seven media works exploring urban environments through a variety of lenses. Featured Artists: Nicky Assmann + Rotor (NL), Younes Baba Ali (MA/FR/BE), Li Binyuan (CN), Seth Cluett (USA), Alice Brunnquell (FR) + Pierre Coric (BE), Sky Hopinka (USA), Laurie-Anne Jaubert (FR), Diego Lama (PE/BE) and Jonas Vansteenkiste (BE).
Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Le Città Invisibili, curator Anouk Focquier created an exhibition bringing audiovisual work and sound-based performances by international artists together, on the invitation of Fridman Gallery, in collaboration with Columbia University and Flanders House New York.
Cities and Eyes is an exploration of the intricate relationship between urban life and the human “critters”—as Donna Haraway aptly calls human beings—who design, inhabit, and are shaped by the sprawling concrete labyrinths of modern cities. At its core, the exhibition examines how our position in space and time influences our perception, offering multiple vantage points from which to observe the city, its inhabitants, and the spaces that lie beyond.
The title Cities and Eyes evokes our ability to view the world from a kaleidoscopic perspective. Borrowing from the cinematic approach often present in Italo Calvino’s writing, the exhibition begins with the idea of perspective—the position of the “camera,” so to speak, and the way it frames what we observe.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the panel discussion “Inviting Imagination: Artistic Generosity as Resistance to Exclusivity” will be organized on Sunday, March 2, 2025, from 3-5 PM. The panel discussion will take place at the Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University, in the Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room. The event is free, but registration is mandatory via this link.
The exhibition will include the work Acoràn (Video, 7’14”, single channel 2021) by Nicky Assmann + Rotor (NL). Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, City of Rotterdam, Droom en Daad Foundation and Mondriaan Fund. Made possible by Klankvorm.
The film Acorán by visual artist Nicky Assmann and experimental sound collective Rotor captures a hypnotic journey through the clouds of Mount Teide on Tenerife, with the sun as a central character. Filmed using an infrared filter, the resulting intense red visuals evoke a volcanic landscape ablaze, symbolizing Earth’s current turbulence.
The soundscape, crafted from field recordings and electronic experiments, enhances the film’s unsettling atmosphere. The title, Acorán, references an ancient Guanche deity believed to rescue the Sun and restore light after its imprisonment in a volcano. This myth found resonance during filming, as a neighboring island’s volcano erupted, linking the narrative to contemporary events.
Acorán merges myth, natural phenomena, and artistic experimentation, reflecting on the fragility of our planet and its entanglement with both ancient and modern crises.
Nicky Assmann creates spatial installations that enhance perception through light, color, and motion. With a background in Film and ArtScience, she merges artistic and scientific knowledge, using processes like turbulence and fluid dynamics to explore turbulent times and climate change. Her work invites sensory experiences through visual, kinetic, and spatial compositions, incorporating natural and optical phenomena. Drawing on expanded cinema, Assmann crafts unique screens from materials such as soap films, copper sheets, and transparent kinetic plates. Her installations, films and video installations explore visual music, synaesthesia, and “hypercolour,” inspired by the sun’s intense hues, challenging perceptions and reimagining our surroundings.
Rotor, an experimental sound collective formed by Eelco Ottenhof and Joris Strijbos in 2017, creates performative installations with rotating sound sources, multi-speaker setups, and modular synthesizers. Their work combines sound art, dark ambient, and noise, crafting immersive sonic environments through synthetic drones, rhythmic structures, and analogue feedback, focusing on the acoustics of space.
Anouk Focquier, founder of Berserk Art Agency, navigates the intersections of politics, imagination, and public space through her curatorial practice. Drawing from the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Chantal Mouffe, she explores how artistic ecosystems foster dialogue, pluralism, and dissent within the public realm.
Guided by Mouffe’s concept of agonistic democracy, Anouk emphasizes art as a critical tool for creating the necessary friction that sustains a democratic society.
Building on Arendt’s idea of the public sphere, Anouk sees artistic practice as a vital element of a pluralistic democracy — a necessary “white space” where true freedom of being and imagination can flourish. Focquier’s work recognizes imagination as a communal domain where individuals can co-create new possibilities and engage in meaningful debate.
Anouk adopts a kaleidoscopic view of art disciplines. Her practice is characterized by an openness to collaboration with independent artists who operate beyond rigid frameworks, translating their ideas into forms that resist categorization.