its own mirror/nocturnal opposite/solar void/concrete absence
Zach Rockwell
Friday, May 6th – Sunday, May 29th, 2011
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
For his exhibit its own mirror/nocturnal opposite/solar void/concrete absence, Rockhill staged a mise-en-scene of associative visual links drawn from a vocabulary set in minimal, performance, and conceptual art. This work expands Rockhill’s investigation into the formal properties of negative space and sculptural inversions begun in the fall of 2010. In particular this show looks to re-examine the generative potential of his refusal to make the art for his exhibit long black at Fluxspace (2010) where he was unwillingly dragged along the gallery wall drenched in paint to create the exhibit.
The current exhibit draws from Stanley Cavell’s interpretation of Becket’s Endgame in his book of essays Must we mean what we say? Rockhill’s sculptural installation is meant to utilize Cavell’s "hidden literality" - a seemingly willful effort to thwart comprehension, where meaning is missed because “it is so utterly bare – totally, therefore unnoticeably, in view.” In this instance, the voided space of a house being methodically cored for video, a negative gesture on par with being forced to make art in long black, is re-imagined as a series of positives in the form of concrete blocks.
Rockhill’s work engages a range of practices and concerns, drawing broadly from philosophy, architecture, science fiction and art history. His work has been shown nationally and internationally. Recent projects include the performance STOCKROOM, The Planet in Orgasm, in Venice, Italy, concurrent to the Venice Biennial, 2009; FLUIDS for the >PERFORMA 07 biennial; screenings at PS. 1 (Queens, NY), Crawlspace (Seattle,WA), Zero Station (Portland ME), Dieu Donne (New York City) and at both Scope (NYC) and the Basel Art Fairs last year. He is a recipient of a Finishing Funds Grant through the Electronic Media and Film Program of the New York State Council of the Arts in 2009 and was a 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in Cross Disciplinary Art. He received his BFA from the University of Kansas and his MFA from Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts. He teaches at the Cooper Union in New York City. Rockhill lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Oslo, Norway.
