Opening November 21 6-9p
Hisham Akira Bharoocha / Conrad Ventur
Work by Hisham Bharoocha and Conrad Ventur comprise the second in a series of quarterly exhibitions at Normal Projects. Bharoocha and Ventur have both previously exhibited in various tonalities site-specific installations and small works on paper. What they share in their materiality, they expand on in their narratives.
Ventur approaches the exterior, the performative image of Johnny Cash or Marlene Dietrich
or Tammy Wynette. Here Ventur utilizes Marlene Dietrich's iconographic performance of Pete Seger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone?. Recontextualizing and re-screening the piece gives the viewer an opportunity to investigate Ventur's established practice within video and photography. Originally exhibited in a larger installation, the video piece will be displayed on a flat screen panel within the exhibition space, giving back to the television quality of such a character as Dietrich. Ventur, a graduate of Goldsmith's College of Art in London, recently exhibited in Athens, Amersterdam, London, and New York.
Bharoocha's installations often encounter performative aspects and also the landscape. "It can be about when one is meditating, dreaming, day dreaming," say Bharoocha, implying despite the urbane, the quiet is implicit. Sound and landscape, then, exist as two inescapable and relational aspects of Bharoocha's work relating back toward selfintrospection. This codifies as a necessary and spiritual balance within Bharoocha. The visual elements exchange this communication of sound wave and silence. Bharoocha received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and has exhibited internationally, with a recent solo exhibition (2007), Feel the Light, at De Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands.
Normal Projects exhibits work on paper and video by emerging and established contemporary artists. This exhibition will be on view from November 7th - December 20th, 2008. There will be a reception from 6-9p on November 21st in association with Bridgeport Art District. For more information, please email Emily Schroeder at normalprojects@gmail.com or ring 917 312-8889.
