Artful Word: Adam Putnam: Magic Lanterns Opening at Burlington City Arts

Description

Community producer James Gero's video the Burligton City Arts 'Magic Lanterns' opening.  In this exhibition, New York-based artist Adam Putnam offers three surprising and evocative explorations into the experience of physical space. His Magic Lantern installations use a 19th-century theatrical technique of projecting light through painted slides. By using bulbs suspended in translucent boxes Putnam projects ethereal architectural interiors on empty gallery walls; complete with doors and endless corridors. Putnam’s meticulous graphite on paper drawings of abstracted cathedral-like sculptures feature erotized cavities and protrusions, including arches, buttresses and crenulations. In photos of his startling contortionist performances, Putnam implausibly folds his six-foot-eight-inch frame into tiny spaces, including cabinets and bookcases. As the everyday experience of space is challenged by the synthetic environments of the online world, the cumulative effect of Putnam’s work is to capture and question our disorienting and mutating sense of physical space. Putnam’s work was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum, NY. This program also includes BCA's Barbara Smail Award ceremony.

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