Bring on the Night: Christine Sciulli’s Petite Nuit Blanche at the Leiber Museum in Springs, NY

 Untitled (Ground Light) by Christine Sciulli.

By JAMES SALOMON September, 2020
 

The future is but a question mark
Hangs above my head, there in the dark.
Can't see, for the brightness is staring me blind
God bid yesterday goodbye.

Bring on the night —
I couldn't stand another hour of daylight.

- Gordon Sumner, 1979


As we bid farewell to summer 2020, artist Christine Sciulli and Museum Director Ann Fristoe Stewart hosted a crisp evening en plein air, celebrating the exhibition “Friends in the Garden”. As night fell, a series of light projections curated by Sciulli illuminated the grounds, and the band got going.

The Existential French Poetry Club: Peter Dayton (Guitar and Vocals), Christine Sciulli (Bass), Barbara Dayton (Drums), Carter Burwell (Keyboards), Nika Nesgoda (Cello), Hank Munchnic (Percussion and Vocals).  Artwork projection by Peter Dayton and Conrad de Kwiatkowski on museum front facade.



Jeremy Dennis' projected image on the Leiber Museum side facade. “Manabozho & The Buzzard”, 2015, based on an Algonquian story of deception and revenge.

Almond Zigmund’s “Black Fence”, 2004, projected on Leiber Museum’s side facade.

“By using simple geometry I seek to reframe the dialogue between the perceived and the actual, and in doing so investigate the nature of art and its relationship to life, a relationship that challenges us to re-investigate our positions and understanding of our own relative spatial security and grasp.”
 

"The Shape of Water” projection by photographer Philippe Cheng, as he takes on a new medium with his serpentine sculptural installation titled “Cadence I”, part of his new series “All The Light You Cannot See.” 

“I know where I want to be, but I can’t possibly be sure we’re anywhere near it.” - Roald Dahl, 1970

Jill Musnicki captures the playful and intimate world of a fox den in a slow moving slideshow on an old potato sack.

Toni Ross’ meditative projection layers onto Bastienne Schmidt’s “Spiral Grid” sculpture, which references Duchamp’s “Three Standard Stoppages” and Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty.”

Petite mort, anyone? 

Pipi Deer’s sensual “Wake Up, This is a Dream, Butterfly ll” projected onto Constantino Nivola’s "Untitled" from the Sardinian Widow Series, 1980.
 

Jeremy Grosvenor “Water Love” projected onto the rare casting of Vercocchio's antique "Winged Cherub with Dolphin”, 1478. The original is located at Palazzo della Signoria, Florence, IT. Christine Sciulli’s “Desert Bloom” installation floats in the fountain.

 

  Saskia Friedrich’s “cityriverocean” projected onto her sculpture titled “In Memoriam”, created as a reaction to those who succumbed to the Covid epidemic. The curvatures emerged from studies in fetal shapes during development, where the artist sees hope in the possibility of continual transformation.

Warren Neidich’s “Cruise” projected onto the base of Gerson Leiber's “The Human Condition”, 2007. Cruise follows the journey of the cruise boat Rhaphsody of the Seas through the Canal della Giudecca in Venice Italy accompanied by the speech that Greta Thunberg gave at the UN set to death metal music. Yes, really!

The video finishes with a rolling list of environmental offenses caused by these ships.
 

Log In by Warren Neidich and Bill Stewart. 

“The Leiber Foundation Garden is a fantastic romantic reproduction of a simulated fantasy generated by an artificial reality based on infinite data points related to gardens making up its encrypted memory. It is not real even though we think it is and act as if it is so. We play at keeping the fantasy of its unreality unknown. One glitch however is unconcealed as an imperfect warped stump sitting alone with no time log in.”     - Warren Neidich 
 

“Friends in the Garden” will be on exhibit well into the fall. For more information, please visit www.leibermuseum.org