(Photos: Clàudia Prat, unless noted)
Let’s face it, CBGB is long gone — even if organizers of this month’s CBGB Festival are trying to bring it back in the form of a LES club and, um, a microdistillery. But across the street from its old location, rock and roll can never die — thanks to some ceramic microphones, drumsticks and bottles of Jack.
The pieces of petrified punk, now on display at The Hole, were created by Rose Eken, a Danish artist who lives in Copenhagen. Using paperclay, she produces multiple variations of beer cans, Bic lighters — even Asprin bottles.
She explained the rock n roll relics at Friday’s opening. “In music there is always repetition in the process of learning: the rehearsals, playing the same scale over and over again,” she said. “This is the same idea: I repeat 10 different ashtrays or 10 different guitar pics, and they are always slightly different.”
(Courtesy of The Hole)
Eken, who did a residency at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in Williamsburg a couple of years ago, told us the series springs from her teenage days working in a theater, doing lighting for bands. “Venues are made for people,” she said. “When no one is in there, there is a kind of suspension. The objects are, like, waiting for something. Or if something has already happened, there is still the lingering in the room.”
(Courtesy of The Hole)
That struck a cord with Henriette Noermark, a curator and writer who attended the opening. “It’s a good story about a party that happens,” she said. “The cigarette butts remind me of all the conversation they might have had and I feel I would like to be there.”
“Remain in Light” will be on display through November 2, along with some large paintings and an installation by Bushwick-based artist Lance De Los Reyes.
