Julie Comnick—Arrangement for a Silent Orchestra
Gallery One at The Factory LIC
30-30 47th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101
Exhibition: Jan 9 – Feb 7, 2020 5pm – 8pm
Opening Reception and Performance: Thursday, Jan 9, 5-8 pm, featuring a solo violin performance of Beethoven’s Romance in F by the artist, and original and re-worked music by Alex Ring Grey.
LIC Arts Open’s Gallery One at The Factory LIC, presents artist Julie Comnick’s New York debut exhibition Arrangement for a Silent Orchestra, a painting and video project that explores the gradual dissolution of culture in contemporary society through the symbolic ruin of a personal and cultural icon, the violin. Using the violin as a metaphor, Comnick raises questions about the relationship between advancing technology and diminishing cultural heritage, inviting the audience to consider what makes the instrument precious in their own experience, and the impact of its loss.
The inception of this project involved the nationwide solicitation of a hundred violins, beyond repair, which were piled in a mountaintop clearing and burned at dusk. The resulting series of twelve monumental oil paintings and a digital video depict the pile of violins in various phases of ruin: at sunset, illuminated by the lowering sun; at nightfall, in stages of burning; and at dawn, the charred remains. The Factory’s 5000 sq ft gallery will also feature Comnick’s orchestra-size sculptural installation of altered music stands.
During the eight-year creation of Arrangement for a Silent Orchestra Comnick relearned to play the violin, cast off since childhood, and the exhibition includes the artist’s own live violin performance. At the Factory, Comnick will collaborate with New York composer and multimedia artist Alex Ring Gray for the opening performance.
