Big O, 2008

Žilvinas Kempinas - New York City, USA

Magnetic tape, electric fans

Big O engineers air circulation into an invisible pedestal for sculpture. It generates instant sculptures that disappear as soon as they are constituted. Big O also maps the space in which it deploys its loop; the map is imprecise, tenuous, provisional—but also incessant, infinite, obstinate. Given that the loop is made out of videotape Big O can also be viewed as a perverted playback machine which shifts the focus from what's on the tape to the tape itself. Machines tend to be linear, even when circular there is a path, a direction. Here the course is resolutely aleatory. The sculpture plays the space in which it is aired. It plays in real time, it does not record, it plays in present time only. The ingredients are all readily apparent to the viewer: fans precisely arranged and tape exactly measured, both interacting to animate an expanse of air with the invisible collaboration of ubiquitous gravity. Yet Big O seems magical, its kinetics captivate, its unpredictability lets the mind meander along the same innumerable variations of its dancing tape. In fact, Kempinas is as much a sculptor as a choreographer here, he establishes the parameters and, once set, he turns on the fans and lets the dancer go.

Žilvinas Kempinas uses unspooled videotape and electric fans to create installations that sculpt and redefine space, conjuring transfixing visual conundrums. Kempinas was awarded the Calder Prize in 2007. His installation TUBE was presented in the Lithuanian Pavillion at the Venice Biennial 53rd International Art Exhibition in 2009. Born in Lithuania and based in New York, Kempinas is represented by Yvon Lambert in Paris and New York, and Vartai Gallery in Vilnius.

Suitable for all ages