Interactive: Beyond Looking
Curated by Allison Paschke
Featuring work by Caleb Nussear, Luiza Kurzyna, Kate Rusek, Stephanie Beck, Sung Jin Choi, Allison Paschke, Peter Kyle
One Brooklyn Bridge Park (waterfront side of 360 Furman Street between Piers 5 + 6)
Brooklyn, NY
generously donated by a partnership of RAL Companies, Vanke US and Oliver’s Realty Group
“Don’t touch.” Artists and art lovers alike have heard this universal command of galleries and museums. A more immersive experience is promised in Interactive: Beyond Looking. Interaction is typically taboo when appreciating art, especially if it involves touch. In this exhibit, visitors can engage more directly with nine sculptures/installations and two performances. By stimulating viewers’ curiosity, these thoughtful artworks potentially offer more memorable, meaningful experiences than those that only appease sight. Participants fulfill the interactive artwork’s purpose; without an audience these artworks are incomplete.
“I have found in my own interactive work that people always make things that I never expected, and they suggest ideas that others hadn’t considered,” says Allison Paschke, the exhibit’s curator. Paschke’s own contribution is add and subtract, which invites viewers to rearrange yolk-shaped resin forms across an array of wall-mounted wires. A play of shadow and light emerges as the resin pieces dangle, beckoning visitors to continue their experiments.
Stephanie Beck’s installations extend the audience’s playtime. House consists of wall-like segments which can be arranged, stacked and juxtaposed into floor plans, while Towers:Landscape resembles a construction site, encouraging visitors to imagine a metropolis from cut-paper towers, scaffolding and discs.
Other works activate even more than the hands, such as Kate Rusek’s untitled, embellished, and cage-shaped structures that can be pulled over one’s body, opening a semiprivate, contemplative space.
Also wearable is Caleb Nussear’s Soft Skin, a canvas cape that folds like origami. Playing dress-up with this armor-like cape allows participants to embody the fabric’s swift, cascading sense of motion. Peter Kyle’s performance Travelers showcases two dancers interacting with one of Nussear’s mirrored and folded “shield” forms to extend the reach of the body and its actions out into space.
Employing a more cartoonish sensibility is Luiza Kurzyna’s Chomp/Champ, a pair of oversized hand puppets that open to reveal a monstrous tongue and teeth. People of all ages can play with these soft sculptures, whose siblings appear in Kurzyna’s performance Kiss My Face. Here, two performers sport foam costumes with massive tongues, both kissing and fighting with one another in a physical comedy as uncanny as it is unnerving.
Teeth reappear in Sung Jin Choi’s Vertigo, a sophisticated wall piece in which casts of the artist’s teeth dance in a motorized spin. A motion sensor detects the viewer’s presence and alters the rotation, spewing strange, nearly hallucinogenic sounds in the process.
Participants fulfill the interactive artwork’s purpose; without an audience these artworks are incomplete. Novel experiences await visitors who dare to dialog with Interactive and bring its ideas to life.
Exhibition Artists
Luiza Kurzyna, Stephanie Beck, Caleb Nussear, Sung Jin Choi, Kate Rusek, Peter Kyle (dancer) and Allison Paschke.
About the Curator
Allison Paschke is an artist and independent curator living in Providence, RI. So far she has curated three shows there: de/construct (2007) and de/construct II (2009), both group exhibitions of installations relating to architecture in a 4300 sq. ft. loft slated for demolition, and Interaction/Immersion, 2012, a group exhibition of interactive and/or immersive installations and performances in a 10,000 sq. ft. industrial space.
For more information about the show or to schedule a visit outside of posted gallery hours, contact Allison at allisonpaschke@gmail.com.
