INTERPLANETARY KISSES
LYLE O'REITZEL GALLERY, SANTO DOMINGO
JUNE 26 - JULY 23 2014


Interplanetary Kisses, Photos: Courtesy Lyle O'Reitzel Gallery

Interplanetary Kisses, Photos: Courtesy Lyle O'Reitzel Gallery

INTERPLANETARY KISSES
KATJA LOHER & JOSÉ BEDIA
COSMIC ROOTS

For the first time, Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery is exhibiting a dialogue between the Cuban master José Bedia and the young Swiss artist, Katja Loher. The creators works are questioning the relationship between human kind and the universe i.e. the concept of micro- and macrocosm.

Our world of high technology and multimedia, becoming more and more virtual, is longing for an archaic return. José Bedia’s magic world reconnects us with ancient spirituality, where every creature is part of the eternal cycle of life and death. The synergy between human beings and nature, this cosmic alliance, has always been crucial in the Caribbean.

José Bedia’s primordial landscapes are inhabited by ancestral figures of animal totems. He explores the myths of indigenous cultures, their popular beliefs and prehistoric settings across the globe connecting the present with the vital forces of the past. Bedia’s inner landscapes are animated by a primitive energy where plants, rocks, objects and natural phenomena are responding to each other.

Both artists are proposing different perceptions of the nature of the world: Bedia is capturing ancestral visions, while Loher, by using the perspective of a bird’s eye, adopts the outside position of a scientific observer, questioning the balance between humans, nature and technology. Katja Loher’s installation is showing what astrophysicists call multiple universes, which in her case becomes a miniverse. The projection of videos on spherical surfaces – often suspended –refers to the organ of vision, the eye, but also to the form of planets. Her Videoplanets feature kaleidoscopic patterns, which are in fact dance formations. This distant view of the world in miniature allows her to bring to light the geometrical movement sequences of the performance. She works like a choreographer displaying a choreography which looks like a nucleus of structure of life. These pinpoint visions of simple and complex organisms confined in the orbs are representing parallel worlds of a cosmic web.

Both artists reveal in their own way the interaction between creatures and their environments – the fundamental issues of our cosmic roots.

Dr. Jeanette Zwingenberger