Jim Campbell
Library, 2004
L.E.D. screen with attached Plexiglas and photogravure
26 1/4 x 31 1/2 x 3 inches
Courtesy of Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, New York

Michel Delacroix
Lisetta, Ferdinand, Saverio, Edward, 1995
metal, plastic, engraved mirrors, water and light
Four peices, each, 73 1/4 x 16 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches
Collection of Miguel Angel Corzo, Philadelphia

Julie Nord
The Hands, 2007
site-specific wall drawing
Dimension variable inches
Collection of the artist and MOGADISHNI

Rosângela Rennó
Experiencing Cinema, detail, 2004
DVD, fog machine, photographic projection on smoke wall
Dimensions variable
Courtesy Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo

Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence

The Contemporary Museum, Makiki Heights
September 1 - November 25, 2007

Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence, brings together 13 international artists including Christian Boltanski, Jim Campbell, Michel Delacroix, Laurent Grasso, upcoming 02art4 artist Jeppe Hein, TCM collection artist William Kentridge, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Teresa Margolles, Oscar Muñoz, Julie Nord, Rosângela Rennó, and Regina Silveira who use ephemeral means in their work such as fog, reflection, shadows, and vapors. The exhibition title refers to 18th-and 19th-century entertainments created by “magic lanterns” and rear-screen shadow projections. These precursors of the modern film projector were used to stage dancing specters and other frightening theatrical effects for their audiences. The exhibition draws on this rich theatrical tradition to reframe questions of absence and loss, death and the afterlife around contemporary issues.

The shadow—literally, the absence of light—represents something that is beyond the object yet inseparable from it. In many of the works included in Phantasmagoria, shadows are used to allude to death, the obscure, and the unnamable, and to construct allegories of loss and disappearance. In several of these pieces, the artists evoke performances of shadow theater, as in the work by South African artist William Kentridge, and in French artist Christian Boltanski’s shadows from cut-tin puppets, recalling imagery from the carnival as well as figurines used to celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Mist, breath, and fog are often associated with mystery; in their double status as perceptible yet almost nonexistent phenomena, they suggest evanescence or absence. In Brazilian artist Rosângela Rennó’s arresting installation Experiencing Cinema, fog is employed as a curtain onto which family photos are projected, addressing the fleeting nature of memories and the images that attempt to record them. Throughout the installations presented in the exhibition, artists’ use of shadows and/or actual fog and mist evokes the alluring enigma and magic of Phantasmagoria.

Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with a text by curator José Roca of the Luis Ángel Arango Library, Bogotá, Colombia.

Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence is a traveling exhibition co-organized by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York, and the Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia, and circulated by iCI. The guest curator for the exhibition is José Roca. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by the iCI Exhibition Partners and the iCI independents.

In-kind support for the exhibition in Honolulu has been provided by Horizon Lines, LLC and Sony Hawaii.