Formalisms: Joel Swanson at Redline
The overwhelming monochrome of this show is made intimately fascinating by pieces that occur only on the extremes of the scale spectrum. One installation of circuiting twigs replicates up an entire wall (slightly disturbed by a fire alarm, as many large works are). The wall-colored shapes hardly seem to stand out but for their shadows, but there they are, big as the gallery. Another piece is tiny: a bud of a lightbulb sprouting from a tall podium. It is small but utterly magnetizing. The piece, a placard explains, is Lady Gaga’s twitter feed translated into morse code. The bulb flashes and flashes intermittently, and one wonders if it is set to loop on a set of previous tweets or...Read more