VIVIAN CACCURI AND MILES GREENBERG: THE SHADOW OF SPRING

Artists Vivian Caccuri and Miles Greenberg, based respectively in Rio de Janeiro and New York, collaborate for the first time on an exhibition designed for the New Museum’s Lobby Gallery. The Shadow of Spring investigates the phenomenon of vibration and its ability to trigger collective transformative experiences. Featuring newly commissioned sculptures, installations, embroidery pieces, and sound works developed separately and in collaboration, this exhibition forms an encompassing environment created to provoke alternative ways to experience the sonic dimension.

The artists invite audiences to experience how sound waves affect our bodies and to consider the manifold ideological, mechanical, spiritual, and symbolic aspects expressed by sound. With works that point to the unseen dimensions of life and subjectivity, the installation calls attention to the invisible bonds that connect us to one another, challenging ideas of separation and individuality and reflecting on how sound can integrate communities and dismantle preconceived ideas of what bodies can be, do, and become.

Best known for his durational performances, Greenberg has recently developed a system to 3D-scan his body while on stage. The raw digital data generated by this process, which merges traces of Greenberg’s movements with unexpected glitches from the scan, is then used by the artist to create life-sized sculptures carved by milling machines. The abstracted three-dimensional sculptures generated by this process function as fountains pouring water from multiple points, adding to the soundscape of the space. The three sculptures are staggered across the gallery, seemingly floating on the surface of mysterious pools of unknown depth, bordered by volcanic stones.

Installed on opposite sides of the space, Caccuri’s large-scale installations combine sound systems and embroidery works, continuing the artist’s investigations of sound and sensory perception through objects, installations, and performances. In her recent series of embroidery on mosquito screens, Caccuri creates allegoric images that are deeply informed by acoustic, queer, and decolonial studies. Developed specifically for this exhibition, Vessel Flame and Vessel Body (both 2022) join Caccuri’s practice in large-scale embroidery with experimental constructions of sound systems.

These compositions were inspired by nineteenth-century representations of Dante’s Inferno and contemporary images of raves and dance floors. The figures dancing, vibrating, and merging into one another were appropriated from photographs Caccuri took of dancers at parties she held in her studio, and from a photographic documentation of Miles Greenberg’s past performances. The two embroidered works, stretched within a frame of hi-fi speakers, thus echo the shapes of Greenberg’s sculptures.

The two sets of thematically related works are further connected by a new sound piece jointly created by Caccuri and Greenberg, enveloping the audience and the entire installation in an experience of spatial reorientation. Inspired by how different rhythms and frequencies can affect group dynamics (as in temples, dance floors, and urban spaces), through The Shadow of Spring Caccuri and Greenberg together investigate the multifaceted relationships between bodies and sound waves.

VIVIAN CACCURI AND MILES GREENBERG: THE SHADOW OF SPRING

New Museum Lobby Gallery, 235 Bowery, New York, NY

November 10, 2022 – February 5, 2023