Originally trained as painter, Sandra Gibson has taken the exploration of shape and color to the mechanical medium of film. She treats film as matter, painting, stenciling, and scratching directly on plastic surface and light-sensitive emulsion. After being meticulously worked upon, individual film frames become miniature paintings or collages. The intricate compositions, however, exist to be transformed by the film projector into exhilarating animations of luminous color. Gibson's handmade process emphasizes the medium's materiality, exploiting those properties of celluloid that are fundamentally distinct from the electronic recording techniques of video. While her earlier films were further reworked in manual editing and optical printing, processes that allow for the reordering, multiplication, and repetition of frames, some recent works are produced without mechanical manipulation, effectively treating the film strip like a painter's canvas, Gibson has recently moved into yet another direction by making a series of single-roll, Super8 films, closely frames sketches of nature that are edited in camera. “Palm” (2003) depicts a gently swaying palm tree against the background of a clear blue sky, its delicate leaves trembling in the breeze, opening and closing like the fingers of a hand. “Bellagio Roll” (2003), filmed in the gardens of Bellagio, Italy, shows blooming, sun-drenched flowers that emerge in short, flickering takes. The subject is explored further in “NYC Flower Film” (2003), which consists entirely of single frames of colorful blossoms blooming in New York City. Graceful compositions of light, movement, and color, Gibson's small-gauge films combine the abstract portrait of a place and its particular rhythm with the depiction of ephemeral, fleeting moments that are universally recognizable. Luis Recoder creates conceptual cinema works that explore the relationship between the film material, film projection, and the space of the cinema. He is interested in the qualities of light specific to the cinematic experience, reveling in the physicality lost in digital media. “The flood of conical light of diverse kinds allows us to experience film as if for the first time,” he says. “We are not in as epoch of a 'rediscovery' of film but the first witnesses of its coming into being in the nearness of its death.” After working on a series of perceptual studies of light and color titled “Available Light” (1999-), Recoder in his recent works addresses the architectural conditions of the cinema space by integrating the glass of the projection booth. In “Glass: Backlight” (2001-02), thin lines of light seep onto the screen around the borders of a black rectangle that is installed in the booth. Like flickering light leaking through a crack in a wall, the beams emerge and disappear in complete darkness, to a softly crackling audio track evoking breaking waves. Focusing on the projector and beam, Recoder develops a sculptural approach to projected light that evokes the work of Anthony McCall in the early 1970s. Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder have exhibited their solo and collaborative performances and installations at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), P.S.1 MoMA (NY), The Kitchen (NY), Diapason Gallery (NY), Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery (Houston), Ballroom Marfa (Marfa), Robischon Gallery (Denver), ICA (London), Barbican Art Gallery (London), Peter Kilchmann Gallery (Zurich), Viennale (Vienna), KW (Berlin), Hartware Medien Kunst Verein (Dortmund), TENT. (Rotterdam), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Museu do Chiado (Portugal), RIXC (Latvia), Image Forum (Tokyo). Their work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Museum of Contemporary Cinema Foundation (Paris), as well as numerous private collections. Gibson and Recoder are based in New York City. Solo exhibitions
2008 REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA (upcoming in September)
2007 Robischon Gallery, “Light Spill,” Denver, CO
2007 University of Virginia Art Museum, “Light Works,” Charlottesville, VA
2007 Kunstraum Walcheturm, “Gibson + Recoder,” Zurich, Switzerland
2007 Palais des Beaux-Arts, “Atmos,” Brussels, Belgium
2006 Diapason Gallery, “Recent Film Installations,” NY
2006 Filmmakers Galleries, “Light Spill,” Pittsburgh, PA
2005 Youkobo Art Space, “Gibson + Recoder,” Tokyo, Japan
2005 Janalyn Hanson White Gallery, “Coming Attraction,” Cedar Rapids, IA Group exhibitions
2008 Plus Gallery, “Hypnosis,” Denver, CO
2007 Ballroom Marfa,
2007 “Film/Performance/Text/Film,” Marfa, TX
2007 Fundazione Morra, “Independent Film Show,” Naples, Italy
2007 TENT., “Borderline Behavior,” Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2007 York Quay Centre, “The Mechanics of the Medium,” Toronto, Canada
2006 Courtisane/Vooruit, “ACT,” Ghent, Belgium
2006 RIXC, “Art + Communication: Waves,” Riga, Latvia
2006 Dundee Contemporary Arts, “Kill Your Timid Notion,” Dundee, Scotland
2006 Institute for Contemporary Art, “London Film Festival,” London, England
2006 Craddock-Terry Gallery, Lynchburg, “Post-Conventional Generativity,” VA
2005 Galerie Peter Kilchmann, “Odiseado Tra Tempo,” Zurich, Switzerland
2005 Yokohama Museum of Art, “Image Forum,” Tokyo, Japan
2005 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, “Image Forum,” Kanazawa, Japan
2005 Hallwalls Contemporary Arts, “Resolutions 05,” Buffalo, NY
2005 The Kitchen, “Transparent Processes,” NY
2004 Whitney Museum of American Art, “2004 Whitney Biennial,” NY
2004 Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, “Open Screening,” Houston, TX
2004 Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, “Expanded Cinema,” Dortmund, Germany
2004 La Casa Encendida, “ExperimentaClub 04,” Madrid, Spain
2003 Museu do Chiado, “Intermittent,” Lisbon, Portugal
2003 Media City 9: Experimental Film & Video Festival, Windsor, Canada
2002 P.S.1. MoMA Contemporary Arts Center, “Animations,” NY
Le Collectif Jeune Cinema, “The Presstapes,” Paris, France
2001 The New York Kunsthalle, “The Walking Picture Palace,” NY
Kala Art Institute, “Handmade Films,” Berkeley, CA
2000 29th International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands