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Katja Loher: Videoplanet — Orchestra
Swiss video artist Katja Loher combines performance art, music and dance to create dynamic installations that question the balance between humans, nature and technology. Instead of using the conventional monitor or wall projection, she projects her videos onto the surfaces of shiny orbs hanging in the gallery space and from within glass bubbles mounted on walls. For the Figge, Loher will create a site-specific “inter-planetary” installation that incorporates elements from new and existing works, which will come together for the first time.
Visitors will enter a darkened gallery space to experience a magical universe consisting of weather balloons of varying sizes, whose rounded forms serve as sites for video projections. Filmed from a high vantage point, these videos will offer museum patrons a chance to peer into a series of mini or micro-worlds in which androgynous, costumed dancers form letters that compose words and sentences to pose simple, thought-provoking questions. In other sequences, dancers take the shape of floral arrangements or recreate the inner workings of a timepiece.
Loher’s dramatic installation creates dreamlike, immersive environments for the visitor. Each tiny “universe” in the exhibition provides an elaborate commentary on big issues. Her video—Why Did the Bees Leave?—metaphorically details the intricate relationship between man and nature by using the Colony Collapse Disorder that has killed millions of bees across the country. Using live actors, Loher creates a tiny world of man-bees that has been videotaped and projected onto a glass sphere. The entire installation will offer viewers an unforgettable experience of a world of microcosms and macrocosms that rival the works of the great 17th century painter, Hieronymous Bosch.
The exhibition is presented through a generous grant from the Riverboat Development Authority and through a multi-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Eastern Iowa Community College District.
For more information about this artist and her work, see this interview from an exhibiton at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.
This exhibition will be on view January 25-May 4, 2014
This project is made possible by a grant to EICCD from the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services
Interplanetary Constellations 2012, Solo exhibition MuBE, Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, Sao Paulo,Brazil. Installation of Videoplanets: Video projections on to floating spheres; dimensions variable (4-8 ft. diameter). Photo courtesy: MuBE, Museu Brasileiro da Escultura.
Sunday April 14th