Nicolas Sassoon & Rick Silva
CORES
January 23 – February 29, 2020

HOLDING Contemporary presents digital and sculptural works by Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva. CORES opens with a reception on Thursday, January 23 from 6 – 8 pm. The exhibit runs from January 23 through February 29 and gallery hours are noon – 5 pm, Thursday – Saturday.

Both Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva explore themes of the wilderness and natural forms through computer imaging in their individual practices, as well as in their on-going collaborative project SIGNALS. This exhibition with the artists includes three bodies of work, including the premier of their collaborative piece, also titled CORES, as well as work from their individual practices. 

Sassoon and Silva’s new work, CORES, features eight digital animations of geologic formations shaped by ecological mutation and human intervention. Rick Silva’s WESTERN FRONTS  functions like a sci-fi nature documentary, visually collapsing landscapes into grayscale polygons, a reference to political and ecological threats that face four US National Monuments. Also included are sculptural works by Nicolas Sassoon, THE PROPHETS. This series of volcanic rocks connected to LCD panels contemplate relations between geological and technological forms and physically link organic and inorganic materials. 

Rick Silva was born in 1977 in Brazil and lives in Eugene, Oregon, where he is an Associate Professor of Art & Technology at the University of Oregon. Silva received an MFA from The University of Colorado in 2007, and has since shown nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions at TRANSFER Gallery in New York, Wil Aballe Art Projects in Vancouver, New Shelter Plan in Copenhagen, Interstitial Gallery in Seattle, and The Ski Club in Milwaukee. Silva’s projects and collaborations have been featured in festivals such as Sonar in Barcelona, Transmediale in Berlin, and Resonate in Belgrade. His works and installations have been acquired by multiple permanent collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Borusan Contemporary Collection, and the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University. Silva’s work has been featured in WIRED, The New York Times, and most recently in Rhizome’s book Net Art Anthology.

Nicolas Sassoon employs early computer imaging techniques to render a wide array of forms and figures, encoded visually using pixelated patterns and animation. This focus on early computer graphics is driven by the sculptural, material and pictorial qualities of this imagery, as well as its limitations and its poetics. Sassoon’s work explores the contemplative, fantastical and projective dimensions of screen- based space, and how the digital image can express dimensions of the physical realm. While most of his output is published online, Sassoon also materializes his web-based practice into a wide range of Medias. His visual research often leads him to engage in cross-disciplinary projects in the fields of architecture, electronic music, textiles, and art. Nicolas is a founder of the collective W-A-L-L-P-A-P-E-R-S and SIGNALS. His work has been exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art (US) Eyebeam (US), Current Museum (US), Hammer Museum (US), Vancouver Art Gallery (CA), Plugin ICA (CA), Contemporary Art Gallery (CA), Charles H.Scott Gallery (CA), Western Front (CA), PRETEEN Gallery (MX), Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), the Centre d’Art Bastille (FR), Espace Multimedia Gatner (FR), House of Electronic Art Basel (SW), Arti et Amicitiae (NL), MU Eindhoven (NL), Today Art Museum (CN), the Berlin Fashion Week (DE)) and the New-York Fashion Week (US).

Photos by Mario Gallucci