Lotte Geeven’s solo show ‘Vigor’ at May Gallery & Residency

Fri, Apr 11 - Fri, Jun 27  2014

May gallery & residency in New Orleans presents the solo-show ‘Vigor‘ by Dutch artist Lotte Geeven from April until June, 2014.

“This exhibition portrays two dualistic complex powers that are omnipresent in this city. Man and object oppose the flow of water. The installation houses two distinct works that speak together about the geographical and social context of New Orleans. The works are as succinct as they can be, but have emerged from things I discovered and experienced during my residency. Much like a kōan, the installation is not set within a logical framework; it is designed to introduce an alternative, deeper understanding of the place we are in. The installation is there to provoke space for new thoughts creating a doorway to the complexity of this city that surround us” Lotte Geeven

VIGOR is a solo exhibition comprised of a video projection, a moving image and an immersive installation with a proprietary publication. Lotte’s exhibition at May is the culmination of her artist residency in New Orleans, which began in February, 2014. Through the bi-weekly journal A Walk With…, produced by May, her cultural, sonic and geographic explorations have been documented and made available to the public as a printed newspaper, and downloadable document. Her exhibition at May serves as a stage for understanding the city and the ways in which upriver regions have metaphorically and literally fed the terra firma that New Orleans sits upon.

‘Dr. Christophe Jackson reading ‘the river’; a book by Lotte Geeven’ video courtesy of Lotte Geeven

The bright installation serves as a room where one can listen to a 1 hour and 15 minute reading of Lotte Geeven’s book ‘the river’. Based on stolen pages, the piece describes the 2320.2 mile current of the great mississippi river. Navigating from one voice to another, the 440 page volume transcends through history, past the muddy riverbanks, valleys, okra fields and plantations. The story has been constructed from hundreds of poems that mention the river, with captivating words about water which are arranged by states, from the source of the river to the delta.

About Lotte Geeven

Lotte Geeven (1980) is a multi-media artist from Amsterdam creating tailor-made portraits of sovereign places. These simple portraits with a graphical character aim to envelope the magic of autonomy and explore complex matter & power beyond our control related to a specific place. For example The sound of the earth –a sound recording from the deepest open hole in the planet- is a portrait of the abstract deep earth. Or the work Sovereign -an upside down Jaguar spinning on it’s back in slow motion in an empty parking lot- is an exploration of the ambiguous character of this sovereign location. Her work has been amongst other shown in China, Japan, Italy, New York, The UK, Indonesia, Canada, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. In 2010 Geeven was awarded with the prestigious Illy Prize for most innovative artist.

The installation is produced with support from the Mondriaan Foundation, Rosa Mary Foundation, The Netherlands America Foundation, RISO, Michael Wilkinson and the May Season Members