PUBLICATIONS
Cooper Union Climate Coalition
Thursday Talks
December 2020
Nikki Romanello
Making with Microbes
https://climate.cooper.edu/thursday-talks/
New Exhibit at the EKG has Extraterrestrial Life and Kombucha
Astrogenesis Exhibition at EKG
April - May 2016
Nikki Romanello
Space! The Future! Kombucha!
http://www.geekadelphia.com/2016/04/14/new-exhibit-at-the-ekg-has-extraterrestrial-life-kombucha/
New York Hall of Science Presents Cosmos
15th International Art-Sci Juried Exhibition
New York Hall of Science
Organized by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc.
Opening: Nov.10, 2013, 3-5pm
Exhibition: August 31, 2013 - March 2, 2014
info@nysci.org
http://www.nysci.org/
http://www.asci.org/
http://www.asci.org/artikel1188.html
Exofossil No. 1
Cast Bismuth and Tin
10” x 14” x .5”
2013
Cut/Paste/Grow Catalogue Release & BioArt Panel
http://cutpastegrow.com/the-cutpastegrow-catalogue/
A small, numbered run of show catalogues, designed by Karen Ingram and featuring three new essays by the curators, are now available. If you are interested in a catalogue, please email dgrushkin [at] genspace.org. Thanks again to all of our artists, Kickstarter supporters, and visitors! Join us at Genspace to celebrate the catalogue release!
BioArt Panel:
http://cutpastegrow.com/catalogue-release-party-and-bioart-panel-8162014/
Before the release party, join our panel discussion on “The State of Bioart Today.” Suzanne Anker, bioartist and chair of fine arts at The School of Visual Arts, and Nikki Romanello, bioartist and CPG contributor, will share the stage with the show’s curators.
Interview with Big Red and Shiny
Welcome back to Studio Sessions and the interview with my next guest, Nikki Romanello.
Nikki earned a BFA in sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008, and an MFA in sculpture from the Pratt Institute in 2011. A majority of her pieces involve casting bones and entire skeletons in various materials, and place these paleontological artifacts in a new context. In other works, she deals with microorganisms or actual animal remnants to create scientifically-inspired installations.
Listen as she explains her process of re-contextualizing scientific objects in an artistic venue, and her interest in the life forms she chooses to work with.
Matt Kuhlman is an artist, writer, and journalist originally from Lawrence, KS. He earned his BFA in printmaking from the University of Kansas, and a Master's in journalism, also from the University of Kansas. His artwork has appeared in dozens of shows throughout the past decade, and Big Red & Shiny is the fourth online publication his work has appeared in. Currently in the Boston area, he has also lived in Albuquerque, Milwaukee, New York City, and rural Kentucky.
Follow the link below
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?article=2013-04-21-065208738856399249
Artist Talk at 3rd Ward
You're invited to join us tonight Thursday April 25th for our monthly 3rd Ward Meetup. Grab a drink, have a snack, and meet and mingle with the 3rd Ward community. Stop by and see what our instructors and other members like you are up to, make a new friend, connect with a business collaborator, and just have a good time.
This month's edition focuses on Art! We've just opened our brand new art studio and to celebrate we've invited Amia Yokoyama (Works on Paper) and Nikki Romanello (Casting with Pewter) to talk about the classes they're teaching in the new space. In addition, Courtney Harge, Program Officer for Fiscal Sponsorship at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) will be discussing funding and networking resources for artists and creatives, and will be performing a Q&A with guests. Learn more >>
3rd Ward Meetup : Art Edition
Today April 25 // 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Ground Floor Event Space at 3rd Ward
Free Beer and Snacks from our friends at Rucola!
A Second Chance For Life
A short documentary by Anna Teregulova about Nikki Romanello
http://vimeo.com/63780796
ANIMAL New York
Quoted by Julia Dawidowicz from Nikki Romanello
“My reason for converting science into an artistic process is to bring science appreciation into culture, which I feel is something lacking in today’s world,” artist Nikki Romanello of Fossil Screen and Tube Worms tells ANIMAL.
“I want to encourage people to research and experiment. I want to educate people so they can make a positive impact on the world.”
Follow the link below to see the full review.
http://animalnewyork.com/2013/beautiful-abominations-an-exploration-of-bio-art-at-observatory/
CUT/PASTE/GROW
The featured image is of a yeast/bacteria culture I’ve been growing and using as a paper source. Follow the links below for more information about the show.
http://cutpastegrow.com/
http://cutpastegrow.com/ks/
http://cutpastegrow.com/opening-saturday-march-23/
http://observatoryroom.org/2013/02/24/cutpastegrow-show-opening/
http://genspace.org/event/20130323/2000/CUT-PASTE-GROW
Interview with Nikki Romanello
Matt Kuhlman of Big Red and Shiny Magazine interviews Nikki Romanello about her work in the second episode.
The first episode: http://bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=BLOG&article=2012-09-09-105459963350837802
www.bigredandshiny.com
Visual Diary - Patchogue Arts Biennial
http://hamptonsarthub.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/visual-diary-patchogue-arts-biennial/
The Second Patchogue Arts Biennial is in the final throes of a three-week exhibition. Last night, I went and checked it out. I entered through “the back door” from inside Briarcliffe College (versus the formal front entrance) and walked into a wide-open gallery of contemporary art. The view was breathtaking.
The Biennial brings together artists from Brooklyn to the Hamptons. There are recent art school graduates to established artists who have exhibited internationally. Artists present several artworks or a single installation. Artist statements are provided in a Biennial catalogue or through an audio tour.
The Patchogue Arts Biennial is presented by the Patchogue Arts Council (PAC). Art is selected by a trio of representatives from three organizations in Patchogue. They are John Cino, chair of the Patchogue Arts Biennial 2011; Beth Giacummo, president of PAC; and Lori Devlin, Patchogue Village Trustee and a PAC board member.
The Biennial is designed to present a range of work by accomplished artists to Western Long Island, where art exhibitions are geographically far-flung, said Cino. Most of the art presented is contemporary art, which isn’t typically exhibited in the majority of Nassau County and Suffolk County, said Cino. The hope of the Biennial is to introduce contemporary art to Long Islanders without requiring travel to NYC. The art selected may be challenging but is still accessible, Cino said.
The artists in both Biennials work mostly on Long Island or Brooklyn. The plan is to continue and hold the next installation in 2013.
“We’ve just started to break the tip of the iceberg of the creativity on Long Island,” Cino said. ”We could keep going for years without running out of talented artists to show.”
BASIC FACTS: The Patchogue Arts Biennial 2011 remains on view through Nov 13, 2011. It is held at Briarcliffe College, Exhibition Hall, 225 West Main Street, Patchogue.
www.PatchogueArtsBiennial.com.
Students Take the Heat During the Bronze Pour
http://gateway.pratt.edu/around-campus-december-2010/2010/12/6/students-take-the-heat-during-bronze-pour.html
Photo LEFT: (L-R) Student Nicole Romanello (M.F.A. Sculpture ’11), under Professor Isolani’s watchful eye, prepares the mold for the pour with the aid of student Andrew Fernandez (B.F.A. Painting ’11). Photo RIGHT: (L-R) Students Andrew Fernandez (B.F.A. Painting ’11) and Nicole Romanello (M.F.A. Sculpture ’11) pour molten bronze into molds quickly and precisely in Pratt’s foundry on the Brooklyn campus. The foundry is a rarity in the New York City area.
Few people are aware that Pratt boasts the only functioning professional foundry in the New York metropolitan area. The foundry was designed 40 years ago by Licio Isolani, now a professor in the Fine Arts department, who had gained his expertise at the Instituto Statale D’Arte in Florence.
Every year, Professor Isolani teaches a fall and spring Foundry I and II course in the metal shop, located on the third floor of the Chemistry Building on the Brooklyn campus. There students of fine arts, industrial design, architecture, or history of art learn the ancient “lost-wax” casting process that enables them to realize works in bronze.
On November 16, students wearing protective hard-hats and heavy gloves endured a grueling day of pouring liquid bronze heated to a temperature of 2,250° Fahrenheit into their waiting molds.
“You’re working with a crucible of 250 pounds of molten metal,” said Isolani, “so you have to take every precaution to prevent any possible injury. Your clothes could catch fire, for example; or if the crucible broke, there could be an explosion of smoke and metal flying in the air. It’s very dangerous, but we’ve never had an accident.”
As they poured, the molten bronze melted and replaced the wax form within each student’s mold. When the bronze had cooled and solidified into shape, the plaster-based mold was cracked open to reveal the final class project.
“Students pour their own work because it’s part of the experience,” Isolani continued, “and it’s not one that many people in New York can claim. Even after just a semester, students can get jobs in foundries thanks to their familiarity with this very specific process.”
Among the observers at the November 16 bronze pour was Isolani’s former Pratt student, Honduran-born sculptor Arnaldo Ugarte, who currently works as a sculpture conservation technician for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund at Kykuit, the former Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, New York, now a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“The pour is so exciting,” said Ugarte, who came especially for the event. “It’s essentially the ‘birth’ of the bronze sculpture, and you have to be very focused to do it. I consider it the epitome of being a sculptor, because it produces work that will endure for many, many years.”
Photos: Arnaldo Ugarte
Cut/Paste/Grow Exhibition Reviews
http://cutpastegrow.com/category/press
Reviews By:
Hyperallergic
Los Angeles Review of Books
Animal New York
NY Times
Anthybrids
A collection of new work by Nikki Romanello
OPENING RECEPTION -- Thursday, March 22nd, 6:30 - 9:30pm
Exhibition will be on view until April 12.
Rivington Design House is pleased to present Anthybrids, a collection of work by artist Nikki Romanello featuring sculpture, installation, and avant-garde jewelry.
Romanello’s body of work is a cross-breed of mediums as well as practices. Her sculptures cultivate from a framework of calcium based remains, ranging from pig skulls thrown aside by head cheese manufacturers to bird bones ransacked from an abandoned science lab. By creating a glycerin cast of these remains, she aesthetically disfigures the skeletal structure of the original specimen. Physical embellishments of her own invention reconstruct these scattered parts into a monstrous hybrid, a vicious ode to the romantic nature of topographical anatomy.
Sculpted glycerin conveys a sleek, futuristic aesthetic in Romanello’s work. However, it is the delicate nature of this material that is essential. Overtime, the glycerin will decay and dissolve and the anthybrids will no longer exist. This aspect of her process is irresistibly poetic -- the creatures are crystalline projections of lost evolutionary potential, a crypt of specimens the ecosystem never permitted to develop. We in turn consider our kinship with these skeletons -- the grotesque nature of these organisms is an alluring taboo that reminds of our eventual extinction and our ecological limits.
Romanello was voted one of the top 50 finalists in 3rd Ward’s Summer Open Call of 2011. Her work has recently shown in the 69th regiment Armory Show, the Fountain Art Fair, the Pop-Up Museum of Observatory in Brooklyn, and Broadway Gallery in SoHo, among others.
129 Rivington St., New York, N.Y. 10002 • info@rivingtondesignhouse.com • (347) 994-9734
www.rivingtondesignhouse.com • www.gallery.rivingtondesignhouse.com
The Pop-Up Museum at Observatory
This show, the Pop-Up Museum, will be available for viewing at Observatory (http://observatoryroom.org/), in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, from March 3rd to April 22nd, 2012. It is an eight-week group show of visual art curated by the Hollow Earth Society (http://hollowearthsociety.com/) and Rob Peterson of Elsewhere (http://elsewhereelsewhere.org/).
About the Show
In partnership with the members and alumni of Elsewhere, and as a precursor to our 2012 residency there, the Hollow Earth Society is bringing together art practitioners in diverse disciplines to create the Pop-Up Museum.
A museum's mission involves the categorization, preservation, and contextualization of objects within a finite, curated space. The Pop-Up Museum functions as the inverse of these practices, bringing together a set of local, "unremarkable" objects—trash and found materials—and from the Gowanus neighborhood, their artistic descriptions/depictions temporarily...
Through the playful categorization, curation, contextualization, and re-contextualization of these objects, we analyze and redefine the museum—both what a museum looks like, physically, and what it does, culturally.
About the Curator
The Hollow Earth Society is a cabal of writers, artists and philosophers who observe paths of discourse and art practice and strike out along a perpendicular, heretofore unnoticed path, not in opposition to reality, but alongside it.
Observatory is an art and events space in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Founded in February 2009 and run by multiple art groups, the space seeks to present programming inspired by the 18th-century notion of “rational amusement” and is especially interested in topics residing at the interstices of art and science, history and curiosity, magic and nature. The space hosts screenings, lectures, classes, and exhibitions, and is part of the Proteus Gowanus art complex.
Write-Up By: Ethan Gould
Follow the development: http://www.facebook.com/groups/339601126071492/
Mutatis Mudantis
Emi Brady and Nikki Romanello at Botanic Gallery
January 6th – January 27th, 2011
In a changing neighborhood, a warring microcosm has emerged where drawings and sculptures enliven Botanic, a provisional gallery space in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Lithographed birds fly off the page to escape being affixed as prostheses to hybrid mammalian monsters. Crystalline skeletons rest on white gallery pedestals transformed into examination tables. They hold fossilized evidence of the violence of which echoes an upheaval happening all around us.
This exhibition is the first major collaboration by Emi Brady and Nikki Romanello. While divergent in their approach, each artist posits an alternate world full of oddities, mutations and deviations from the objective artifact. Brady’s excised print images seem to flutter around the room and come alive; flat & linear; they simultaneously maintain their “drawingness” while fully engaging the interior of the three-dimensional gallery space. Romanello’s sculptures, skeletons composed of various animal bones re-cast in glycerin soap. They become inanimate objects of existential contemplation. Though derived from things once animated they are motionless objects whose fragility is heightened by the nature of their material. The whole installation is an environment where the viewer is permitted to walk among the remnants of a primordial land.
Brady’s and Romanello’s creatures are carefully considered down to the last detail where each bone, limb, bird and flock was chosen and arranged for its’ relationship to the whole. Axioms surrounding creation, augmentation, and biodegradation heighten the interpretation of these combinations. The incredible cultural artifact collides with the credible depiction in this exhibition. And it is this conflict that creates a sense of timelessness, a moment of tranquility in the center of the melee that affords us the opportunity to be absorbed in these artists’ vision.
www.BotanicBK.com
Cooper Union Climate Coalition
Thursday Talks
December 2020
Nikki Romanello
Making with Microbes
https://climate.cooper.edu/thursday-talks/
New Exhibit at the EKG has Extraterrestrial Life and Kombucha
Astrogenesis Exhibition at EKG
April - May 2016
Nikki Romanello
Space! The Future! Kombucha!
http://www.geekadelphia.com/2016/04/14/new-exhibit-at-the-ekg-has-extraterrestrial-life-kombucha/
New York Hall of Science Presents Cosmos
15th International Art-Sci Juried Exhibition
New York Hall of Science
Organized by Art & Science Collaborations, Inc.
Opening: Nov.10, 2013, 3-5pm
Exhibition: August 31, 2013 - March 2, 2014
info@nysci.org
http://www.nysci.org/
http://www.asci.org/
http://www.asci.org/artikel1188.html
Exofossil No. 1
Cast Bismuth and Tin
10” x 14” x .5”
2013
Cut/Paste/Grow Catalogue Release & BioArt Panel
http://cutpastegrow.com/the-cutpastegrow-catalogue/
A small, numbered run of show catalogues, designed by Karen Ingram and featuring three new essays by the curators, are now available. If you are interested in a catalogue, please email dgrushkin [at] genspace.org. Thanks again to all of our artists, Kickstarter supporters, and visitors! Join us at Genspace to celebrate the catalogue release!
BioArt Panel:
http://cutpastegrow.com/catalogue-release-party-and-bioart-panel-8162014/
Before the release party, join our panel discussion on “The State of Bioart Today.” Suzanne Anker, bioartist and chair of fine arts at The School of Visual Arts, and Nikki Romanello, bioartist and CPG contributor, will share the stage with the show’s curators.
Interview with Big Red and Shiny
Welcome back to Studio Sessions and the interview with my next guest, Nikki Romanello.
Nikki earned a BFA in sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008, and an MFA in sculpture from the Pratt Institute in 2011. A majority of her pieces involve casting bones and entire skeletons in various materials, and place these paleontological artifacts in a new context. In other works, she deals with microorganisms or actual animal remnants to create scientifically-inspired installations.
Listen as she explains her process of re-contextualizing scientific objects in an artistic venue, and her interest in the life forms she chooses to work with.
Matt Kuhlman is an artist, writer, and journalist originally from Lawrence, KS. He earned his BFA in printmaking from the University of Kansas, and a Master's in journalism, also from the University of Kansas. His artwork has appeared in dozens of shows throughout the past decade, and Big Red & Shiny is the fourth online publication his work has appeared in. Currently in the Boston area, he has also lived in Albuquerque, Milwaukee, New York City, and rural Kentucky.
Follow the link below
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?article=2013-04-21-065208738856399249
Artist Talk at 3rd Ward
You're invited to join us tonight Thursday April 25th for our monthly 3rd Ward Meetup. Grab a drink, have a snack, and meet and mingle with the 3rd Ward community. Stop by and see what our instructors and other members like you are up to, make a new friend, connect with a business collaborator, and just have a good time.
This month's edition focuses on Art! We've just opened our brand new art studio and to celebrate we've invited Amia Yokoyama (Works on Paper) and Nikki Romanello (Casting with Pewter) to talk about the classes they're teaching in the new space. In addition, Courtney Harge, Program Officer for Fiscal Sponsorship at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) will be discussing funding and networking resources for artists and creatives, and will be performing a Q&A with guests. Learn more >>
3rd Ward Meetup : Art Edition
Today April 25 // 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Ground Floor Event Space at 3rd Ward
Free Beer and Snacks from our friends at Rucola!
A Second Chance For Life
A short documentary by Anna Teregulova about Nikki Romanello
http://vimeo.com/63780796
ANIMAL New York
Quoted by Julia Dawidowicz from Nikki Romanello
“My reason for converting science into an artistic process is to bring science appreciation into culture, which I feel is something lacking in today’s world,” artist Nikki Romanello of Fossil Screen and Tube Worms tells ANIMAL.
“I want to encourage people to research and experiment. I want to educate people so they can make a positive impact on the world.”
Follow the link below to see the full review.
http://animalnewyork.com/2013/beautiful-abominations-an-exploration-of-bio-art-at-observatory/
CUT/PASTE/GROW
The featured image is of a yeast/bacteria culture I’ve been growing and using as a paper source. Follow the links below for more information about the show.
http://cutpastegrow.com/
http://cutpastegrow.com/ks/
http://cutpastegrow.com/opening-saturday-march-23/
http://observatoryroom.org/2013/02/24/cutpastegrow-show-opening/
http://genspace.org/event/20130323/2000/CUT-PASTE-GROW
Interview with Nikki Romanello
Matt Kuhlman of Big Red and Shiny Magazine interviews Nikki Romanello about her work in the second episode.
The first episode: http://bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=BLOG&article=2012-09-09-105459963350837802
www.bigredandshiny.com
Visual Diary - Patchogue Arts Biennial
http://hamptonsarthub.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/visual-diary-patchogue-arts-biennial/
The Second Patchogue Arts Biennial is in the final throes of a three-week exhibition. Last night, I went and checked it out. I entered through “the back door” from inside Briarcliffe College (versus the formal front entrance) and walked into a wide-open gallery of contemporary art. The view was breathtaking.
The Biennial brings together artists from Brooklyn to the Hamptons. There are recent art school graduates to established artists who have exhibited internationally. Artists present several artworks or a single installation. Artist statements are provided in a Biennial catalogue or through an audio tour.
The Patchogue Arts Biennial is presented by the Patchogue Arts Council (PAC). Art is selected by a trio of representatives from three organizations in Patchogue. They are John Cino, chair of the Patchogue Arts Biennial 2011; Beth Giacummo, president of PAC; and Lori Devlin, Patchogue Village Trustee and a PAC board member.
The Biennial is designed to present a range of work by accomplished artists to Western Long Island, where art exhibitions are geographically far-flung, said Cino. Most of the art presented is contemporary art, which isn’t typically exhibited in the majority of Nassau County and Suffolk County, said Cino. The hope of the Biennial is to introduce contemporary art to Long Islanders without requiring travel to NYC. The art selected may be challenging but is still accessible, Cino said.
The artists in both Biennials work mostly on Long Island or Brooklyn. The plan is to continue and hold the next installation in 2013.
“We’ve just started to break the tip of the iceberg of the creativity on Long Island,” Cino said. ”We could keep going for years without running out of talented artists to show.”
BASIC FACTS: The Patchogue Arts Biennial 2011 remains on view through Nov 13, 2011. It is held at Briarcliffe College, Exhibition Hall, 225 West Main Street, Patchogue.
www.PatchogueArtsBiennial.com.
Students Take the Heat During the Bronze Pour
http://gateway.pratt.edu/around-campus-december-2010/2010/12/6/students-take-the-heat-during-bronze-pour.html
Photo LEFT: (L-R) Student Nicole Romanello (M.F.A. Sculpture ’11), under Professor Isolani’s watchful eye, prepares the mold for the pour with the aid of student Andrew Fernandez (B.F.A. Painting ’11). Photo RIGHT: (L-R) Students Andrew Fernandez (B.F.A. Painting ’11) and Nicole Romanello (M.F.A. Sculpture ’11) pour molten bronze into molds quickly and precisely in Pratt’s foundry on the Brooklyn campus. The foundry is a rarity in the New York City area.
Few people are aware that Pratt boasts the only functioning professional foundry in the New York metropolitan area. The foundry was designed 40 years ago by Licio Isolani, now a professor in the Fine Arts department, who had gained his expertise at the Instituto Statale D’Arte in Florence.
Every year, Professor Isolani teaches a fall and spring Foundry I and II course in the metal shop, located on the third floor of the Chemistry Building on the Brooklyn campus. There students of fine arts, industrial design, architecture, or history of art learn the ancient “lost-wax” casting process that enables them to realize works in bronze.
On November 16, students wearing protective hard-hats and heavy gloves endured a grueling day of pouring liquid bronze heated to a temperature of 2,250° Fahrenheit into their waiting molds.
“You’re working with a crucible of 250 pounds of molten metal,” said Isolani, “so you have to take every precaution to prevent any possible injury. Your clothes could catch fire, for example; or if the crucible broke, there could be an explosion of smoke and metal flying in the air. It’s very dangerous, but we’ve never had an accident.”
As they poured, the molten bronze melted and replaced the wax form within each student’s mold. When the bronze had cooled and solidified into shape, the plaster-based mold was cracked open to reveal the final class project.
“Students pour their own work because it’s part of the experience,” Isolani continued, “and it’s not one that many people in New York can claim. Even after just a semester, students can get jobs in foundries thanks to their familiarity with this very specific process.”
Among the observers at the November 16 bronze pour was Isolani’s former Pratt student, Honduran-born sculptor Arnaldo Ugarte, who currently works as a sculpture conservation technician for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund at Kykuit, the former Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, New York, now a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“The pour is so exciting,” said Ugarte, who came especially for the event. “It’s essentially the ‘birth’ of the bronze sculpture, and you have to be very focused to do it. I consider it the epitome of being a sculptor, because it produces work that will endure for many, many years.”
Photos: Arnaldo Ugarte
Cut/Paste/Grow Exhibition Reviews
http://cutpastegrow.com/category/press
Reviews By:
Hyperallergic
Los Angeles Review of Books
Animal New York
NY Times
Anthybrids
A collection of new work by Nikki Romanello
OPENING RECEPTION -- Thursday, March 22nd, 6:30 - 9:30pm
Exhibition will be on view until April 12.
Rivington Design House is pleased to present Anthybrids, a collection of work by artist Nikki Romanello featuring sculpture, installation, and avant-garde jewelry.
Romanello’s body of work is a cross-breed of mediums as well as practices. Her sculptures cultivate from a framework of calcium based remains, ranging from pig skulls thrown aside by head cheese manufacturers to bird bones ransacked from an abandoned science lab. By creating a glycerin cast of these remains, she aesthetically disfigures the skeletal structure of the original specimen. Physical embellishments of her own invention reconstruct these scattered parts into a monstrous hybrid, a vicious ode to the romantic nature of topographical anatomy.
Sculpted glycerin conveys a sleek, futuristic aesthetic in Romanello’s work. However, it is the delicate nature of this material that is essential. Overtime, the glycerin will decay and dissolve and the anthybrids will no longer exist. This aspect of her process is irresistibly poetic -- the creatures are crystalline projections of lost evolutionary potential, a crypt of specimens the ecosystem never permitted to develop. We in turn consider our kinship with these skeletons -- the grotesque nature of these organisms is an alluring taboo that reminds of our eventual extinction and our ecological limits.
Romanello was voted one of the top 50 finalists in 3rd Ward’s Summer Open Call of 2011. Her work has recently shown in the 69th regiment Armory Show, the Fountain Art Fair, the Pop-Up Museum of Observatory in Brooklyn, and Broadway Gallery in SoHo, among others.
129 Rivington St., New York, N.Y. 10002 • info@rivingtondesignhouse.com • (347) 994-9734
www.rivingtondesignhouse.com • www.gallery.rivingtondesignhouse.com
The Pop-Up Museum at Observatory
This show, the Pop-Up Museum, will be available for viewing at Observatory (http://observatoryroom.org/), in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, from March 3rd to April 22nd, 2012. It is an eight-week group show of visual art curated by the Hollow Earth Society (http://hollowearthsociety.com/) and Rob Peterson of Elsewhere (http://elsewhereelsewhere.org/).
About the Show
In partnership with the members and alumni of Elsewhere, and as a precursor to our 2012 residency there, the Hollow Earth Society is bringing together art practitioners in diverse disciplines to create the Pop-Up Museum.
A museum's mission involves the categorization, preservation, and contextualization of objects within a finite, curated space. The Pop-Up Museum functions as the inverse of these practices, bringing together a set of local, "unremarkable" objects—trash and found materials—and from the Gowanus neighborhood, their artistic descriptions/depictions temporarily...
Through the playful categorization, curation, contextualization, and re-contextualization of these objects, we analyze and redefine the museum—both what a museum looks like, physically, and what it does, culturally.
About the Curator
The Hollow Earth Society is a cabal of writers, artists and philosophers who observe paths of discourse and art practice and strike out along a perpendicular, heretofore unnoticed path, not in opposition to reality, but alongside it.
Observatory is an art and events space in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Founded in February 2009 and run by multiple art groups, the space seeks to present programming inspired by the 18th-century notion of “rational amusement” and is especially interested in topics residing at the interstices of art and science, history and curiosity, magic and nature. The space hosts screenings, lectures, classes, and exhibitions, and is part of the Proteus Gowanus art complex.
Write-Up By: Ethan Gould
Follow the development: http://www.facebook.com/groups/339601126071492/
Mutatis Mudantis
Emi Brady and Nikki Romanello at Botanic Gallery
January 6th – January 27th, 2011
In a changing neighborhood, a warring microcosm has emerged where drawings and sculptures enliven Botanic, a provisional gallery space in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Lithographed birds fly off the page to escape being affixed as prostheses to hybrid mammalian monsters. Crystalline skeletons rest on white gallery pedestals transformed into examination tables. They hold fossilized evidence of the violence of which echoes an upheaval happening all around us.
This exhibition is the first major collaboration by Emi Brady and Nikki Romanello. While divergent in their approach, each artist posits an alternate world full of oddities, mutations and deviations from the objective artifact. Brady’s excised print images seem to flutter around the room and come alive; flat & linear; they simultaneously maintain their “drawingness” while fully engaging the interior of the three-dimensional gallery space. Romanello’s sculptures, skeletons composed of various animal bones re-cast in glycerin soap. They become inanimate objects of existential contemplation. Though derived from things once animated they are motionless objects whose fragility is heightened by the nature of their material. The whole installation is an environment where the viewer is permitted to walk among the remnants of a primordial land.
Brady’s and Romanello’s creatures are carefully considered down to the last detail where each bone, limb, bird and flock was chosen and arranged for its’ relationship to the whole. Axioms surrounding creation, augmentation, and biodegradation heighten the interpretation of these combinations. The incredible cultural artifact collides with the credible depiction in this exhibition. And it is this conflict that creates a sense of timelessness, a moment of tranquility in the center of the melee that affords us the opportunity to be absorbed in these artists’ vision.
www.BotanicBK.com