Jennifer Steinkamp’s 3-D Installations
Buffalo, NY - Melding aspects of computer animation, abstract painting, film, architectural space, and motion, Los Angeles based artist Jennifer Steinkamp creates stunning 3-D installations. This exhibition, on view at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery through June 29, 2008, offers a comprehensive view of one of the most important and prolific video and new media artists of our time.
Kansas City art critic Dana Self, who saw the exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art exclaimed, “Jennifer Steinkamp's exhibition is a blowout extravaganza. The pieces are dominating and gigantic, controlling the area and the body, threatening to overpower the gallery space.”
Steinkamp’s unique approach and distinct imagery create an awe-inspiring experience that balances between the virtual and the real. She aims to defy spatial confines and obliterate the existing boundaries between the object and the viewer. Her work relies on inclusion of the viewer and his/her complete immersion into the space. The exhibition includes eight- installations that were made from 1995 and 2004.
Technology plays a major role in Steinkamp’s art, however her computer never takes precedence over the desired aesthetic effect; her computer is the equivalent of paint, palette, and brushes. She brings a heightened focus on human sensory experience through her phenomenological installations, using light, motion, and sound to dematerialize and activate space, setting her works apart from the work of her peers.
In many works Steinkamp manipulates images of nature, including rolling seas, twirling flowers, images of the cosmos, and other atmospheric conditions to create ethereal experiences. Eye Catching, 2003, inspired by the snakes atop Medusa’s head, is a hyper-realistic tree with branches twisting in constant motion.
The massive installation, Wreck of the Dumaru, 2004, recreates the majestic beauty, yet powerful ferocity of the sea by synchronizing four video projections to create a panoramic, animated seascape. Viewers interrupt the projected light beams and cast figurative shadows that become trapped in the bobbing waves. This work is a potent visual homage to Steinkamp’s great uncle, a sailor who died during World War I.
Jennifer Steinkamp studied at Cal Arts and Art Center in Los Angeles, and has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida; and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington, among others. Her work has been included in group shows such as Site Santa Fe Biennial, 2001; 8th Istanbul Biennial, 2003; and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Extreme Abstraction exhibition, 2005.
Two Steinkamp works have become part of the Albright-Knox permanent collection since 2004, Untitled, 1993, and Dervish, 2003.
The first survey of the artist’s work, Jennifer Steinkamp was organized by the San Jose Museum of Art and is accompanied by a major catalogue by Prestel Verlag.
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery (www.albrightknox.org ) is an outstanding center of modern and contemporary art. Its permanent collection, which includes works by most of the great artists of the late 19th and the 20th centuries, as well as many emerging artists, has been cited as one of the world’s top international surveys of modern and contemporary painting and sculpture.