CLICK THROUGH for our exclusive slideshow of installations featured in system:system.
What do you get when you put 25 artists in a former convent? Curators Christina Vassallo and Adam Henry of Random Number aim to demonstrate this weekend and next, when their show system:system opens in the St. Cecilia parish at 21 Monitor Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Rather than let the abandoned building turn into something akin to this, the good parishioners are lending the space to a bevy of art-related activities: film shoots, screenings, dance performances, and art exhibitions. We’ve got pictures of the system:system installation in progress, plus details on the show after the jump.
There’s almost no cooler space we can envision hosting an installation-heavy exhibition than an old convent (well, perhaps a mental hospital or abandoned airplane hangar). Of the 25 pieces represented in the show – including work by eTeam, Jeff Konigsberg, Matthew Schenning, Studio Mode, and Suzanne Song – we’re especially keen on “i ain’t afraid of no ghosts” by Yeni Mao, who meticulously set 1,200 mouse traps in the basement, arranged in a circular altar around a pile of glitter. The installation is filmed by an infrared camera, whose live feed is visible on a monitor in another wing of the building. When the mouse traps snap shut, as they sometimes do, the camera picks up the movement of glitter in action.
Another room is decked out in a custom built installation by designers SOFTlab, whose piece “pAlice” is constructed out of laser-cut chipboard clad in reflective skin. The form converges in the center of the room thanks to arms, or branches, generated from every entrance (windows and doors).
system:system opens tonight, Friday October 23, with a party from 7-10 pm. The exhibition is on view this weekend and next from 12-6 pm on Saturday and Sunday, or by appointment.
Bonus time! Scope pictures of the convent, post-nun and pre-renovation, courtesy of Room Tones, the first art exhibition to take over 21 Monitor Street this summer.
