Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, is hosting Ivan Navarro’s second solo exhibition in the gallery, the Mute Parade, a forceful display of language, sound, light and sensory effects with the purpose of exploring political issues as propaganda, migration, obedience and the need for power.
The first work to be discovered is the Tuning (2015), a pyramid of six drums in which are written the words High, Tone, Tune, Bass, Mute and Deaf with LED lights, creating a synesthetic effect of light playing with sound.
Continuing in the same fashion, the next installations are two freestanding drums with reflexive mirror-like interiors and circular texts that say Kickback, and Knocknocknock rendered also with LED lights.
The final work on display is a 6 x 6 structure entitled the Impenetrable Room (2016) comprising of cases made to protect the musical instruments during transportation that are refitted with mirrors and neon lights to obtain a visual but also an acoustic effect of perpetual reverberation.
“Silent and monolithic, these self-contained rooms resonate with unspoken narrative power. (…) Throughout the exhibition, black and white paper squares are scattered across the floors of all three galleries. The words Read You and Loud Unclear, printed on opposite sides of the cards, call attention to the disjunction between the visual and auditory aspects of communication. Informed by the aesthetics and rhythms of military parades, Mute Parade contemplates the juxtaposed feelings of celebration and intimidation that martial music begets,” is said in the presentation of the exhibition.
Photo credits: Paul Kasmin Gallery
MAVERICK CULT 