BE THERE
Standing WavesPresented by Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery January 19, 2006- February 25, 2006Norman Ballard
For over 30 years, Norman Ballard has dedicated himself to the development and exploration of laser light as a means of artistic expression. Having established his mastery of laser technology through a number of collaborations in a variety of settings, Ballard has produced seven new works for the exhibition, representing the artist’s inaugural foray into the construction of discrete sculptural objects. Known for working on a monumental scale, here Ballard has produced a series of small scale kinetic light sculptures. Encasing laser and light-emitting diodes in sculptural forms filled with a photo-reactive liquid polymer, Ballard shapes laser light by utilizing personalized computer programs for sequentially plotting raypaths through precise geometrical prism arrays to probe the enclosed spaces with a singular wave-form motif. This new work is not only an evolutionary progression in the deployment of Ballard’s own hybrid aesthetic, which operates at the interstices of architecture, media and sculpture, but also signifies a watershed moment in the development of intimate scale laser technology. “Space can be seen as expansive regardless of scale ” says Ballard, who explains these pieces as a temporal suggestion of “the infinite variants inherent in any space.” Ballard’s light sculptures extend the vocabulary of laser light as an art medium while expanding the notion of how light is situated in artistic practice. While the new work clearly draws inspiration from the language of minimalist sculpture as shaped by Donald Judd and Richard Serra, Ballard’s pieces should also be considered as engaging a dialog with the light-oriented work of James Turrell and Dan Flavin, the luminescent glasswork of Czech artists Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova and the technical ingenuity displayed in Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s photograms and Christian Schad’s schadographs. Ballard’s new work is the culmination of a lifetime of experimentation with and employment of laser light as an aesthetic medium. Ballard was born in Saratoga Springs, NY, 1950. He is celebrated for his theatrical design efforts, which have included projects with Lighting Designer Ronald Bates at the New York City Ballet as well as his technical production work developing special scenic elements for Metropolitan Opera productions including such works as the Julie Taymor directed Mozart opera Magic Flute, and the current revival of Wagner’s Lohengrin directed by Robert Wilson. Ballard has also enjoyed a productive 20-year relationship with film and video art pioneer Nam June Paik. The Paik/Ballard laser installation entitled Jacob’s Ladder/Sweet and Sublime was displayed in the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda during the Guggenheim Museum’s 2000 retrospective of Paik’s work, and has subsequently been acquired by the Guggenheim for its Permanent Collection. In addition, Ballard collaborated with Paik on Transmission/32 Cars for the Twentieth Century (Play Mozart’s Requim Quietly), which, premiered at Rockefeller Center in 2002, organized by The Public Art Fund. Norman Ballard lives and works in Manhattan, NY.
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