Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins: Pavilion of the Blind

Tierney Gardarin is pleased to announce the first New York solo exhibition of Jennifer Marman + Daniel Borins, opening Thursday, September 12 and on view through Saturday, October 26, 2013. The artists will be present at the opening reception from 6-8pm on Thursday, September 12.

The exhibition will feature a large-scale installation entitled Pavilion of the Blind and a series of related paintings. Pavilion of the Blind is a freestanding structure that contains a colorful array of window blinds, panels and shades. Movement is triggered by a motion detector and controlled by a PLC (programmable logic controller) housed within the structure. The mechanical installation arranges and rearranges itself into a series of constantly changing abstract compositions.

The title of this work is both a visual pun and a reference to H.G. Wells' 1939 text The Country of the Blind, a parable that reflects upon the nature of vision and how we communicate our visual experience with others. The Pavilion functions as a window into the mind of the artist, running through an endless series of pictorial themes and variations. The execution of the paintings allude to the tradition of Constructivism and echo the compositions of the larger sculptural form, allowing for a humorous, somewhat paradoxical commentary on artistic practice, and the history and nature of abstraction.

Jennifer Marman + Daniel Borins have been making large-format sculpture, mixed media, installation and electronic art since 2000. Intervening upon institutional and public spaces, their work often contextualizes visual art squarely within everyday life while simultaneously referring to and reassessing twentieth century art history: its utopias, polemics, and formal one-upmanship. Their work is currently featured in a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, entitled The Collaborationists, which will travel to several additional museum venues in 2014.