Kali at the Firehouse

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 Photograph of the Seeking Kali Collective by Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic's Brooklyn office.

The Seeking Kali Collective’s exhibit at the Second Avenue Firehouse Gallery opens next Saturday.  The Firehouse is located on Long Island in Bay Shore, N.Y and is included in the National Register of Historic Places and described as one of Bay Shore’s architectural gems.

We will be showing our Kali print edition, which marked the beginning of our collaborative experiments.  Occasioned by a Facebook thread concerning iconography associated with the Hindu goddess Kali, our association and explorations have continued since January of 2010. 

As a collective one of our objectives is to explore ways in which to utilize social media as an artistic tool enabling long distance collaboration among artists.   Ria Vanden Eynde works from Belgium, Susan Shulman is in Montreal, Canada and I have my studio in Connecticut.  Through the use of groups in Facebook, Skype and Google+ hangouts we have created a virtual studio where our explorations take place.

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Kali Edition

The print edition was completed in the summer of 2011 and our signing of the nine examples took place at the offices of the Brooklyn based arts blog, Hyperallergic.

 Framed examples of Kali Edition prepared for the Firehouse Exhibit

Over the 18 months that marked the collaborative process of the edition we also embarked on the curation of an online blog that compiled images, video and poetry concerning the Kali goddess.   The results of that archive have been documented on a video that has since been exhibited in Berlin, Germany, Boston, MA and Joliette, Canada.  We will be again exhibiting that compilation as well as our latest curation of images relating to the Medusa archetype edited by Susan Shulman.

The exhibit will also contain other examples of the collective's video works including Kali's Sari which premiered during the Experimental Film Night hosted by the Mobius Artist Group of Boston, MA.  Kali's Sari is based on a Butoh performance with Shizu Homma, Jane Wang and Angela Ferrara's interaction with the handpainted Kali Scroll Sari by William Evertson. The video was edited with Ria Vanden Eynde utilizing Google+ video conference.

Video still from Kali's Sari

The Kali Collective has participated in The Billboard Project in which images are designed for large scale outdoor display in cities throughout the USA.  Giclee prints of several of these images have been prepared for exhibit.  The video archive of images from Richmond, Chicago, Duluth, Salem, Detroit and San Bernardino will be on display.  

Sphinx by Susan Shulman (from San Bernardino billboard display - 40' approx.)

Material from the Collective's series of Kalicorp Art Mysteries mentioned in the last post will also be on display. These graphic novels are a photographic odyssey exploring current art world events constructed in an exquisite corpse fashion.  

Mocking up the display for the graphic novels.

An edition of prints from the Metropolis series, the KaliRay Flip book, masks, puppets and other ephemera round out the exhibition.

We hope you can join us on Saturday August 4th between 6 and 8pm for the opening.  The exhibit is open on Saturdays during August from 12 -4pm.

Directions: The Second Ave. Firehouse is located in Bay Shore at the corner of Mechanicsville & Second Avenue Southern Pkwy to exit 42S (Fifth Avenue South), left on Union Blvd.,right on Second Avenue, proceed to the corner of Mechanicsville & Second Avenue. Firehouse is on the left. 17 Second Avenue