Drawing the City (Day One, Day Two), 2004 Limited edition DVD, 11 minutes, color, sound. 2-day performance, canvas, paint, crayons, umbrellas, tree trunks, artist's body, pedestrians, video, sound.
White Chalice (Ennoia), 2004
Sculptural installation: polypropylene, rubber latex, water, projected video, sound. Photos courtesy of Remy Toledo Gallery and Chelsea Art Museum, New York.
Intervals (Without Interruption)Lennie Varvarides Remy Toledo Gallery 529 West 20th Street, New York
October 21st - November 20th 2004
Experiencing the work of Monika Weiss involvesall your senses to some degree. One can not simply walk past the Skulenie (2003), an enigmatic charcoal drawing on photographic
backdrop paper, without feeling the essence of the artist's presence, or hearing the echoes of physical form resonating in Weiss' drawings, sculpture installations, live or
video projected performative works. The exhibition embodied the exploration of time and physical endurance in aÊsubtle and even tranquil camouflage of opaque colors and layered
sounds. There is just the right amount of contractions and ambiguities in the exhibition, to present aÊnew visual experience with every gaze. Playing with time in such a way makes,
Drawing the City, (Day One, Day Two) 2004 and Lethe 2004, timeless, venerable, and universally recognizable.
The artist body is a recurring image and material, whether live or in representation. Weiss' live body is exposed to the site-specific conditions of time and climate, while also
performing aÊdocumentative function. Weiss invites the public to draw within the large-scale landscapes, blurring the boundaries between herself and others.
In some of Weiss' sculptural and sound installations aÊsolo performative action invites the public's voyeurism while creating aÊsite that embraces their own bodies as they share
the task of remaining silent in front of her solitary action. In White Chalice (Ennoia) 2004, aÊvideo image of the artist's curled up body is projected into the water-filled
octagonal chalice, becomes subtly yet increasingly interactive, as one may not only see themselves within the reflection, but also experience the virtual figure looking back at
them. This opens up aÊdialogue between real time performance and the suggestion of time past, creating delicate layers of time and meaning.
Sculpted cast-concrete vessel filled with hundreds of layers of paper "Lethe" on the other hand, may be viewed with or without the live or prerecorded presence of the artist.
The evidence of aÊpast performance is still palpable through the line traces of her body, another play on time and perspective. Lethe may also function with the sensors
and motors creating aÊ'breathing' rhythm based on aÊfragment of music by Hildegard of Bingen, (which we hear in the Drawing the City) and which Weiss described as, "the
abstract and physical line in the composition, in the room."
In all of her recent works Weiss surrenders herself to the self-imposed environment, both in space and in time, where the time itself becomes conquered as merely an equal
element together with her body, the site, the paper, the paint, the stone, the wind, the umbrellas and the passing pedestrians.
The exhibition Monika Weiss: Intervals together with Carolee Schneemann's Infinite Kisses II and SNAFU was on view at Remy Toledo Gallery, New York,
October 21 - November 20, 2004; 529 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10001.
