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While walking around Chelsea I was struck by several gallery spaces showing early 20th century modernist furniture and lights. The lights were always beautiful in their elegant simplicity as was the furniture. We went into one showroom with several beautiful pieces- a beautiful sofa and an armoire that were set in a room lit by florescent tube lights behind an elegantly etched frit glass scrim.

I had a chance to see Michael Somoroff’s exhibition Illumination at the BravinLee Projects space on 26th Street in Chelsea. It was in interesting example of a good idea- create sci-fi like projections of sound and light. He had several different projection pieces- one on a large monitor as you entered the dark space and two more facing each other as you went further into the space.

I like the idea of using video projectors with slowly transforming  abstract light projection. Good possibilities there.

The problem for me with this work, was that not only were the images science fiction like, but there were 2001 A Space Odyssey soundtracks composed for each piece. It was hard for me to separate the presentation from a trailer to a new sci-fi film, and perhaps that was the intention. Reading the Press Release after leaving I now understand “the artist’s interest is in sacred architecture, spirituality and politics provoked by light patterns on March 20, 2003 when the US first attacked Iraq.” That intention was absent for me in the Illumination project.