Iole Alessandrini’s installation, untitled, at Jack Straw Productions gently reminds us of those pulsating, unacknowledged forces at work in the air we breathe and in the spaces that lie between us. Blurring planes of green light cut the darkened gallery into pyramids and other geometric shapes that reveal the dancing energy of unseen matter. Like Robert Irwin or James Turrell, Alessandrini seeks to lower our sensory threshold so that we might discover more about the world and about ourselves.
After entering the gallery — which she and her collaborators designed and constructed for the exhibition — we notice first the lines and angles dividing the space into smaller components. But our observations of these minimalist forms soon give way to pleasure, as we are overcome by the sensuality of faintly-visible slices of atmosphere and recognize its existence everywhere — both inside and outside the gallery.
As one might find after immersing him-or-herself in a work by Irwin or Turrell, such revelations awaken the mind to excitements and possibilities forgotten or gone unconsidered for too long.
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