Frank Gillette – The Symbiotic Blues
October 24 – December 5, 2024
Opening Reception: October 24, 2024, 6 – 8 pm
“to hold, as’ twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
LOS/NR is proud to present a major multi-screen video work by the pioneering American video and installation artist Frank Gillette (b. 1941, Jersey City, NY). Interested in the empirical observation of natural phenomena, his early work integrated the viewer’s image with prerecorded information. He has been described as a pioneer in video research with an almost scientific attention for taxonomies and descriptions of ecological systems and environments. Gillette’s seminal work Wipe Cycle (co-produced with Ira Schneider in 1968) is considered as one of the first video installations in art history. Gillette is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Symbiotic Blues is the world premier of a 9-channel video study of woodland and beach of eastern Long Island. It consists of three video triptychs (Riverrun, Spearlight, and Blackseer) exploring the ways in which we experience the natural world. In nine endless loops, Gillette returns to a subject he has been drawn to for over fifty years; the relationship between the natural world and the ways in which we experience it over time. He achieves this through a complex engagement with classic genres: still-life, landscape, and symbolic abstraction combined with soundtracks mixing natural and electronic sounds. Though the artist was among the first to use television as an artistic medium, his video work has remained rooted in an approach stemming from his early training as an abstract painter. In the artist’s words, “…each triptych combines aesthetic judgment with the forces which shape nature’s boundaries.”
This exhibition is organized by David A. Ross, the former Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1972, Ross was appointed as the world’s first curator of Video Art at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY. His first exhibition of Frank Gillette’s work occurred in 1973. An illustrated brochure with an essay by the noted philosopher, naturalist and musician Dr. David Rothenberg will be available for the show.
There will be an opening reception with free flowers and ice creams (while supplies last) on Thursday, October 24, 6-8 pm. Be advised, timed entry might be required during the event.
The gallery is located at 7910 Ivanhoe Ave, La Jolla, CA 92037. We recommend parking at El Patio Shops building on 7946 Ivanhoe Ave for a flat fee of $7, or at The Ivanhoe building on 7817 Ivanhoe Ave for a flat fee of $10. Street parking is free after 6 pm but likely hard to find during our event. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 12 pm to 4 pm and by appointment. For further information and press inquiries, please contact C Fodoreanu at info@losnotrequired.com
