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Ballroom Marfa is proud to present Strange Attractor, a group exhibition that will be on view in Marfa from March–August 2017, with an opening reception from 6–8:30pm on Friday, March 10. As part of the Marfa Myths festival, the reception will feature a unique collaborative performance by artist and musician Lonnie Holley and psych duo Tonstartssbandht, with visuals by Benton C Bainbridge.
Strange Attractor is an exhibition exploring the uncertainties and poetics of networks, environmental events, technology, and sound. The term “strange attractor” describes the inherent order embedded in chaos, perceivable in harmonious yet unpredictable patterns. This mathematical concept is a useful trope for the elusive order in our lived experience, and the vital pursuit of making meaning from unexpected connections. New and commissioned works employing sound, site and technology form the connective tissue of this expansive terrain.
As part of this process Strange Attractor invites the collision of historical and contemporary artworks in diverse media. The exhibition will feature Alexander Calder’s previously unseen, sound-
For her newly commissioned work for Strange Attractor, artist Phillipa Horan has been experimenting with mycelium—the vegetative part of a fungus—and growing a figurative mycelium-
Strange Attractor will also include a commission from Lucky Dragons, the collaborative project of Sarah Rara and Luke Fischbeck. The artists are forging specially designed tuning forks to be installed in the Ballroom courtyard, broadcasting their tones throughout the town of Marfa on overlapping radio frequencies in a continuously evolving sonic sculpture.
In addition to these commissions, Strange Attractor will include extant works that further the exhibition’s exploration of networks, environmental events, technology, and sound. Beatrice Gibson’s video F for Fibonacci uses aleatoric music, the computer-
Also making its public debut is Douglas Ross’s abstraxi, a 47 x 6.5 foot, Jacquard-
With this unique constellation of works Strange Attractor builds on Ballroom Marfa’s reputation for using art as a lens to examine ecology, history, science and technology. Strange Attractor creates an opportunity for audiences to apprehend meaning in an increasingly complex reality. Visitors to this remarkable exhibition will develop a sense of curiosity and agency, and cull meaning from systems and trends that lie at the limits of human comprehension.
Artists: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Thomas Ashcraft, Robert Buck, Alexander Calder, Lucky Dragons, Phillipa Horan, Channa Horwitz, Haroon Mirza, Douglas Ross
Organized by guest curator Gryphon Rue
Strange Attractor is made possible by the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston; Lipman Family Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Texas Commission on the Arts; Ballroom Marfa Board of Trustees and Ballroom Marfa Members.
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© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2017. All Rights Reserved