Joseph Morris / William Lamson
October 28–December 3, 2017
Opening Reception: October 28, 6–8 pm
Left: Joseph Morris, Immanence, 2013-16. Right: William Lamson, An Invisible Universe, 2017
Ulterior Gallery is pleased to present two solo presentations of work by artist, Joseph Morris and William Lamson.
The front gallery will feature works by Joseph Morris. The highlight is Immanence, a work made of membranes (plastic film), lights, and moving scaffolding (spring steel) that viscerally evokes the act of breathing. Custom software directs the process of inhalation and exhalation, creating an immersive environment in which the room itself seems to be drawing breath, eliding the distinction between the “body” of the space and the body of the viewer.
Another work in the show, Null Space, Between Breath and Breathing, is a set of two neon lights, each controlled by an individual particle detector. The detectors can sense subatomic particles and gamma rays that are so small as to pass completely through a person’s body without touching a single atom. When a particle or wave passes through the detector's sensor, it triggers the neon light to turn on or off. The two lights continually change states at seemingly random intervals, communicating the presence of an inaccessible hidden space that exists both within and without the viewer.
Morris’s work engages with ephemerality, perception, movement, space, and time to generate a subjectivity that is at once embodied and disembodied. The experience extends beyond the works’ physicality and evokes an evolving, indeterminate sense of inter-subjectivity.
In the back gallery, William Lamson will exhibit An Invisible Universe, a single artwork comprised of unique, illuminated salt-and-glass spheres. The clear glass globes are blown by hand and then allowed to sit for months while formations of salt crystals grow from a liquid solution onto the interior of the glass sphere. As a result of this process, each globe possesses its own atmosphere and topography—a self-contained mineral world.
The term “invisible universe” refers to all that exists outside of observable space. Each individual light is an independent part of this larger, expanding whole, which will never be seen in its entirety. As individual spheres are distributed to different locations, the work creates an imperfect model of an expanding universe. This is an ongoing, long-term project initiated in 2017 and which continues as open-ended series.
In both material and duration, An Invisible Universe relates closely to Lamson’s newly opened, site-specific installation at the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover, Utah called Mineralogy. Hidden within a former WWII armament building that is itself undergoing the organic effects of time, Lamson has created a fully furnished bedroom throughout which hundreds of vessels of salt water are repeatedly filled and allowed to evaporate. The salt encrusted walls and furniture evoke a sense of entropy and deep time contained within this ruin-like environment.
Joseph Morris graduated with an MFA in Art and Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 after obtaining a BFA in Sculpture from SUNY Purchase College in 2006. Morris currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He was a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Digital/Electronic Arts, and also Individual Artists Grant recipient sponsored by Harvestworks Digital Media Center in New York and funded through the New York State Council on the Arts. His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows including: Infinite Resonance, Rhode Island College Art Center (solo, 2016); Joseph Morris & Robin Mandel, Creative Workshop, New Haven, CT (2016); and Gambiólogos 2.0, Oi Futuro BH, Brazil (2014).
William Lamson obtained an MFA degree in 2006 from Bard College. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His performances and projects have been subject of numerous exhibitions and have been reviewed in Artforum, Frieze, the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, Harpers, and The Village Voice. He has been awarded grants from the Shifting Foundation and the Experimental Television Center; most recently he was a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. His work is in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and West Collection. Currently his works are on view at the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Wendover, UT, and Area 405, Baltimore, MD.
