We are looking forward to bringing a dramatically different kind of exhibition experience to Vincennes that will start off with November’s First Friday. Tetramurmur: An Immersive Environment will be a collaboration by four Minnesota-based artists. It promises to transform our gallery spaces through the use of sound and movement as well as visual art.
Brief backstory: our daughter Rachel Jendrzejewski and her partner Theo Goodell have both been involved with various forms of performance art over the past six years. Last summer Rachel worked in collaboration with Minneapolis-based Supergroup to present In Which ___and Others Discover the End, a production that included text, music, choreography, special lighting effects and interaction by an ensemble cast with Liz Miller’s colorful “set” constructed from cut felt and paper. Liz and her spouse David Hamlow, also a visual artist, live and work in Good Thunder, Minnesota, southwest of the Twin Cities.
Since opening our doors in October 2013, we’ve been interested in hosting events that make use of the specific spatial experience our building can provide. The Third Coast Percussion performance in January 2015 and the theatrical sketch “An Evening with Frida” in August 2015 are two examples. We thought it would be interesting to see what Rachel, Theo, Liz and David would do in terms of a project the goal of which would be to use the space and structure of the gallery as an element in a “composition” that incorporated sound, movement, and text as well as visual components. We invited them to visit the gallery and if interested, develop some exhibition ideas.
After coming to Vincennes for a weekend in April of this year, during which they studied the gallery spaces and explored Main Street, they collaboratively created this proposal:
“Tetramurmur: An Immersive Environment is an imaginative contemplation of time in tandem with the natural and built environment of Vincennes. All three ASV exhibition rooms will be transformed into futuristic landscapes inspired by shapes, patterns, and forms found in local native flora and fauna as well as architectural detail on Main Street. Accompanied by dreamlike texts and sound, the galleries become immersive sanctuaries for meditating on the ever-shifting relationships between nature and humans. This project is created especially for Art Space Vincennes by installation artists Liz Miller and David Hamlow in collaboration with performance artists Rachel Jendrzejewski and Theo Goodell.”
The work is now in progress up in Minneapolis and Good Thunder. Imagery derived from Main Street architecture is being combined with motifs unique to the visual art of David and Liz, and experiments with lighting are underway. Rachel and Theo will be contributing sound, text, and possibly choreography during the First Friday Art Walk opening on November 4.