Josiah McElheny Model for a Film Set (The Light Spa at the Bottom of a Mine) 2008
Excerpted from Geoff Manaugh's posting at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, ccca.qc.ca, on the recent publishing of "The Light Club: On Paul Scheerbart's The Light Club of Batavia," a volume edited by artist Josiah McElheny (University of Chicago Press, 2010):June 17, 2010 Geoff Manaugh:
"In 2008, artist Josiah McElheny exhibited new work at the Donald Young Gallery inspired by Paul Scheerbart’s peculiar short story “The Light Club of Batavia,” originally published in 1912. In the words of McElheny’s gallery, Scheerbart “tells the story of an ambitious woman’s unlikely plans for an underground light spa—a refuge for a modern illness she calls ‘Light Hunger.’ Her plan is realized by a motley crew of architects, artists, and foreign patrons after many long-winded speeches and romantic pledges”—though “long-winded” somewhat over-states the duration of a story that is itself only six pages long.
McElheny’s resulting piece is called Model for a Film Set (The Light Spa at the Bottom of a Mine).
“Constructed of colored glass modules stacked and mortared, it is McElheny’s abstract envisioning of the wondrous architectural installation described in Scheerbart’s tale.” But what is the “wondrous architectural installation” that the gallery refers to?
Recently republished in a volume edited by McElheny himself, Scheerbart’s story “The Light Club of Batavia” is available here in the CCA Library, where I had an opportunity to read it. [...]"
Read the rest of the original post at CCA, where Geoff Manaugh is a 2010 Visiting Scholar: http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/study-centre/1013-hurray-for-crystal-geoff-manaugh
Below, MOMA videos presents "Josiah McElheny presenting at MoMA" May 21, 2007 upload:
No comments:
Post a Comment