Adam Ekberg: In the between
@ Thomas Robertello Gallery
939 West Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60607
Opening Friday, December 11th, from 5PM - 8PM
On view through Saturday, February 6th
Continuing with the use of lens-based phenomena, humble celebratory gestures, and primitive constructs, Adam Ekberg further develops two distinct bodies of work; images created in the woods or nature, and images using his apartment as stage set. In the latter, images born of isolation and ennui become hermetic mini-exaltations. Ordinary objects displaced from their normal context signal the simultaneity of Ekberg’s absence and presence, and a slippage of perceptual lucidity–the erosion of which gives way to a witnessed consciousness. This higher non-dualistic consciousness replaces subject and object with a singular moment of meditative stillness and attainment. The lineage of this exercise can be traced to the ancient yoga practice of tratak, or fixing one’s gaze on an object in order to gain focus and concentration. The capturing of these images arms the camera with an omniscience that finds an odd pairing with beer bottles, disco balls, lighters, and cocktail umbrellas.
While similar to the performative aspects of Ekberg’s interiors, the outdoor imagery, boundless in many ways, allows the artist to abandon certain restrictive elements and celebrate a personal communion with nature. The positioning of a flashlight on the ground creating an illogically placed beacon of light on the horizon, a duet of balloons in Precise Equilibrium; one helium and one filed with the artist’s breath, and a thrown handful of glitter all point toward self-portraiture minus the actual subject. In his video of a fuse slowly burning on the pavement, the gnarled line gradually disintegrates staining the pavement with a residue of gunpowder, evoking a whole life with beginning, end, unexpected twists, a past, present, and future.
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