Overview
Before the Law
March 14, 2015 – April 25, 2015
Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 14, 6-8pm
Featuring a vocal performance by Slaveya
Artist Talk & Workshop:
Saturday, April 11, 3pm
In their first collaboration, Philadelphia based artists Jane Carver and Raúl Romero present an exhibition of performance, sound and video at Transformer. Using Kafka’s parable Before the Law as a point of origin, the works presented explore the tensions between absolutism and relativity. The parable appears in Kafka’s book The Trial, which celebrates its centennial anniversary this year. Embodying the story’s tale of a man’s untenable pursuit to understand Law and its complications, the artists explore the malleable relationships between sounds, images and their forms.
In this exhibition, Jane ushers in diaphonic tonal sounds, Bulgarian folk music and performance to accompany Raul’s video works. This crossing of sound and video culminates in creating a space of action with a live sound performance acting as a soundtrack to Raul’s videos. Diaphonic sounds, found in Bulgarian culture, create a striking tension, which reminds the listener that sound is a physical force. Jane was introduced to diaphonic singing through Les Mystere Des Voix Bulgares, a volume of different folk ensembles re-released in 1986 by Peter Murphy, the singer from Bauhaus.
Raúl Romero is a member of the Philadelphia artist collective Space 1026, and a 2015 Artist-in-Residence at RAIR. He holds a BA from the University of South Florida. He has exhibited at Fleisher Art Memorial, Pentimenti Gallery, The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, and in Tampa, FL at The Museum of Science and Industry, The Tampa Museum of Art and The Contemporary Art Museum, where he was awarded The William and Nancy Oliver Gallery Prize by Anne Pasternak for the 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition.
Jane Carver is the Artist-in-Residence at The Association for Cultural Equity: The Alan Lomax Archive and co-founder of the performance series Low Stakes at Hunter College. She sings with the Bulgarian women's choir, Yasna Voices, and will be traveling this August to Koprivshtitsa for the National Festival of Bulgarian Folklore. She has performed at AUX Space at Vox Populi, Queens Museum, The American Folk Art Museum, and in the art and sound festival Groundswell at Olana in Hudson, NY.
Jane and Raul both participated in Promised Land, Transformer's 2014 summer artist residency and exhibition in Asbury Park, NJ.
