Storyteller and illusionist, New York-based artist Alexandre Singh once again leads the viewers meandering in his magical and scientific universe. The Pledge at The Drawing Center, (curated by Claire Gilman) is his first solo presentation in a North American Museum.
The rooms of the main gallery are filled with an enormous amount of framed black and white collages, arranged and organized in a large diagrammatic system whose elements are connected by hand-drawn pencil dots on the wall. They are a part of the ongoing series Assembly Instructions, created from material photocopied from books and magazines.
However, the starting point of the project was not an image but rather text – the series of interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers and scientists (among them: screenwriter Danny Rubin, director Michael Gondry, artist Simon Fujiwara, neurobiologist Leah Kelly and others) conducted by Singh in 2011, fictionalized, and published in an issue of Palais de Tokyo’s magazine.
With the finesse of a magician and the precision of a scientist, Singh transform visual and written language into a drawing gesture. The installation expands the gallery like a growing organism leading from one room to another. The pencil-dots connecting the various drawings create the links of significations but also leave the space for own interpretation. Each wall refers to a different subject and contains own range of connections, which can fluently lead from images of parrots to Picasso’s brain or a mysterious interior. Singh mixes surrealism with logical systems, observation with representations of life. It’s like playing a game or tracking the thoughts of mad artist-scientist.
Singh sets up a drawing not only as a gesture, but also as a transmitter of thought processes. Referring to historical and contemporary qualities of daily life, he creates visual and mental maps of flows of ideas and information, where disparate associations allow the contemporary to reside on one plane.
Text by Weronika Trojanska
Alexandre Singh The Pledge The Drawing Center, New York
Until March 13, 2013
