VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art will show Aziz + Cucher’s Synaptic Bliss during Fall Line Fest

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art will present a limited run of the four-channel video Synaptic Bliss by Aziz + Cucher during the Richmond Fall Line Fest September 6-7 with an artist talk that is open to the public on Friday, September 6. The viewing will take place on the future site of the […]

August 26, 2013; 9:20 AM • by Fan of the Fan

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art will present a limited run of the four-channel video Synaptic Bliss by Aziz + Cucher during the Richmond Fall Line Fest September 6-7 with an artist talk that is open to the public on Friday, September 6.

The viewing will take place on the future site of the ICA at the corner of Broad and Belvidere streets, where four screens set within Portable On Demand Storage cubes will simultaneously play Synaptic Bliss. The space will include an AstroTurf viewing area, and the site will serve as a gathering spot for the Fall Line Fest with food and beverage trucks gathered there.

Launched in 2003, the series of works collectively known as Synaptic Bliss explore ideas of a digital consciousness, as well as the blurring of the distinctions between the body and its environment, the exterior and the interior, and the organic and the artificial. The works in this ongoing series include a variety of media, ranging from architectural installations to video projections and environments, as well as digital prints and hand-woven rugs.

“This powerful work by pioneering video artists Aziz + Cucher is a teaser of what’s to come from the ICA,” said ICA Director Lisa Freiman. “We plan to bring a continuous stream of important new art from across the country and around the world and to forge these types of partnerships with the local community when the ICA opens in 2015.”

The Fall Line Fest features a full lineup of concerts and events in the Richmond Arts & Cultural District along Broad Street including special exhibitions at 1708 Gallery, Quirk, Art180 and others, as well as a mural that Richmond street artist HAM is painting at 101 West Marshall St.

The artist talk by Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher, who make up the artist collective Aziz + Cucher, will be at the Grace Street Theater Friday, September 6, at PM. The talk is free and open to the public.

New York-based Anthony Aziz (American, b. 1961) and Sammy Cucher (Venezuelan, b. 1958) are widely recognized as pioneers in the field of digital imaging and have created an accomplished body of work over the past two decades. While Synaptic Bliss consists solely of video installations, Aziz + Cucher’s body of work also spans photography and sculpture. Their work has been widely exhibited internationally and they have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Herzliya Museum of Art, Israel; Stiftelsen Art Center, Bergen, Norway; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Photographer’s Gallery, London; and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City. In 1995 Aziz + Cucher represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale.

August 26, 2013 9:20 AM 0