LigoranoReese
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LigoranoReese is the collaborative name of Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, artists who've worked together since the mid-eighties. Their artwork falls within the fields of new technology,
ice sculpture Ice sculpture is a form of sculpture that uses ice as the raw material. Sculptures from ice can be abstract or realistic and can be functional or purely decorative. Ice sculptures are generally associated with special or extravagant events becaus ...
,
installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...
,
video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...
,
artists books Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that engage with and transform the form of a book. Some are mass-produced with multiple editions, some are published in small editions, while others are produced as one-of-a-kind o ...
and limited edition multiples.


Background

Nora Ligorano met Marshall Reese in 1977 while studying painting at the
Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, it is regarded as one of ...
in Baltimore. Reese moved to Baltimore in 1977 after a year abroad as a student at
Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...
. From 1978 to 1980, he co-published with Kirby Malone the small press magazine ''Epod'' that featured early
language poetry The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Sca ...
and performance scores and began experimenting with visual and
sound poetry Sound poetry is an artistic form bridging literary and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntactic values; "verse without words". By definition, sound poe ...
as a member of CoAccident a collective of poets and musicians. Ligorano and Reese began working collaboratively in that context. In 1982 Ligorano was awarded a
Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...
scholarship in design arts in Spain. Reese moved with Ligorano to Barcelona, where they made their first video art piece, relocating to Madrid the following year. In 1984, Reese moved to New York City to pursue interests in video art. Ligorano joined him one year later in Williamsburg Brooklyn. In New York, both of them continued working in
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
and video expanding into other media including installations, artists books and limited edition multiples.


Works


New Technology

In 2001, The Kitchen and MIT MediaLab commissioned LigoranoReese to make an interactive installation for the exhibition ID/entity. The artists’ ''Van Eyck's Mirror'' is an installation based on the
Arnolfini Portrait ''The Arnolfini Portrait'' (or ''The Arnolfini Wedding'', ''The Arnolfini Marriage'', the ''Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife'', or other titles) is an oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, dated 14 ...
using video, sensors and computer controls. This was among LigoranoReese's first artworks that incorporated interactive technology. In 2003 they made ''In Memory of Truth'' an installation using a microprojection system designed by the artists and the optical engineer Tony Cappo. The centerpiece of the installation is a magnifying glass on a pedestal with a primary lens that miniaturizes Hollywood war films to fit on the head of a pin. Holland Cotter described the piece “a tour-de-force.” ''History's Garden'' 2006 was the next installation using a similar microprojection system. Mounting a prism and lens on a mechanical arm, they replaced the moving counterweight of a metronome with a small projection screen on which images of refugees from Central Europe and the Middle East are projected. With funding from
NYSCA The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) serves to foster and advance the arts, culture, and creativity throughout New York State, according to its website. The goal of the council is to allow all New Yorkers to benefit from the contribution ...
and the Jerome Foundation in 2003 they started research and development on illuminating woven fiber optic thread. From 2003 – 2007 they worked with Eric Singer on developing the hardware. In 2009 while residents at Eyebeam, LigoranoReese met Luke Loeffler and devised programming with him for the fabric to respond to live information from the internet. Calling this body of work “fiber optic data tapestries” the artists completed ''50 Different Minds'' in 2010, which uses Twitter feeds and air flight data to make patterns and colors on its surface. In 2013 they debuted a new tapestry called ''I•AM•I'' at Miami Art Project with
Catharine Clark Gallery Established in 1991, the Catharine Clark Gallery presents the work of contemporary, living artists using a variety of media. The gallery is located in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill Neighborhood, at 248 Utah Street. The Catharine Clark Gallery i ...
. ''I•AM•I'' is a woven personal data portrait using
Fitbit Fitbit is a product lining, line of wireless-enabled wearable technology, physical fitness monitors and activity trackers such as smartwatches, pedometers and monitors for heart rate, quality of sleep, and stairs climbed as well as related soft ...
activity and responses to a self-reporting emotional survey to create an abstract portrait of the artists’ subjects. Two of these pieces are in the collections of the University of Wyoming and 21C Museum in Louisville. Megan Prelinger in her book ''Inside the Machine: Art and Invention in the Electronic Age'' notes:
... these characteristics allowed microcircuits to retain a legacy association with textile crafts, an association that has been encouraged in the intervening decades by the networked nature of the electronic systems that now structure everyday life. The twenty-first century textile artists LigoranoReese writing about their electronic tapestries woven of fiber-optic thread, explain their approach to integrating electronics with weaving: 'Weaving is a social activity. It is about threading narratives and mythology, even language and accounting, with (the)
quipu ''Quipu'' ( ), also spelled ''khipu'', are record keeping devices fashioned from knotted cords. They were historically used by various cultures in the central Andes of South America, most prominently by the Inca Empire. A ''quipu'' usually cons ...
. Weaving is a shared tradition common to cultures throughout the world in the same way that computers and networks have flattened the world, making communication and exchange more common.'


Temporary Monuments - Ice Sculptures

In 2006, on the third anniversary of the Iraq War, the artists installed the word ''Democracy'' sculpted from 2000 pounds of ice in the garden of Jim Kempner Fine Art in New York City. They called it ''The State of Things'' and photographed and filmed it while it disappeared. This project began a series of public art events LigoranoReese call “temporary monuments.” In 2008, Provisions Library invited the artists to participate in BrushFire, public art interventions by a number of artists during the campaign season in the Midwest. The artists reprised ''The State of Things'' at the conventions in Denver and St. Paul, installing ice sculptures of ''Democracy'' in front of the
Museum of Contemporary Art Denver The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA Denver), in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 1996 as the first dedicated home for contemporary art in the city of Denver. For seven years, MCA Denver occupied a renovated fish market in Sakura Square in lower d ...
on the first day of the Democratic Convention and on the state capital grounds in St. Paul on the first day of the Republican Convention. In October that same year, the artists installed an ice sculpture of the word ''Economy'' on the 79th Anniversary of the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
in front of the New York State Supreme Court Building at Foley Square. In 2010 LigoranoReese made an ice sculpture of the words ''Middle Class'' and filmed it disappearing in Kempner's garden called ''Morning In America''.
Senator Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the senior United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independent in US congressional history, but maintains a close relati ...
featured the time lapse video on his U.S. Senate webpage. In 2012 at the conventions in Tampa and Charlotte, the artists remade the installation in public parks there. The artists installed the ice sculpture ''Dawn of the Anthropocene'' in New York City in front of the Flatiron Building as part of the People's Climate March on September 21, 2014. It was a 21-foot long sculpture of the words "The Future" disappeared in 13 hours. The poet/writer
Charles Bernstein Charles Bernstein may refer to: * Charles Bernstein (composer) (born 1943), American composer of film and television scores * Charles Bernstein (poet) (born 1950), American poet, essayist, editor, and literary scholar {{hndis, Bernstein, Cha ...
writes, “The fundamental feature of LigoranoReese's ice sculptures is that they start out as massive objects, weighing two tons, but by the end of the day they are no more than memories. The sculptures are constantly metamorphosing, changing shape at every moment. In this sense, these works are more lifelike than other kinds of public art, imitating the way life is a constant series of changes.”


Installation Art

LigoranoReese began making video installations in 1992 often as sculptural objects that incorporate video monitors placed inside other media: newspapers, books and clocks. These sculptures concerned how electronic networks were changing physical media and transforming the act of reading and sharing information.
Johanna Drucker Johanna Drucker (born May 30, 1952) is an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital art a ...
commented on their installation ''The Corona Palimpsest'':
The current tension of the book reflects the present tense of electronic media continuing to come into being. This is not a contrast between the space of the real and the space of the virtual, but between two modes of imaginative life of thought, language, and the eye, each competing to determine the relations of history, language and idea. As the page was once written so the monitor redraws itself.
In 1994 they installed their first public art installation in the windows of the
Donnell Library Center The 53rd Street Library is a branch of the New York Public Library at 18 West 53rd Street, just west of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building is located on the south side of 53rd Street, across from the Museum of Modern ...
. ''Acid Migration of Culture'' was a 48 ft x 8 ft photo mural of an open dictionary of cultural terms. Four video monitors displayed statements by artists, politicians and civic leaders on the role of arts in society. ''Free Speech Zone'' (2004) at the
Brooklyn Public Library The Brooklyn Public Library is the public library system of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is the sixteenth largest public library system in the United States by holding and the seventh by number of visitors. Like the two Brooklyn Publ ...
Grand Army Plaza Main Branch featured backlit duratrans photos of blind-folded library users and electronic zipper signs of titles and phrases of banned and challenged books. In 2005, they reinstalled it in the windows of the Donnell Library Center.


Video Art

Single channel video art and videos as elements of sculptures, installations and websites is an ongoing activity of their collaboration. They exhibit these in galleries and festivals.


Limited Edition Multiples

LigoranoReese began making artists books and limited edition multiples in 1992 with the ''Bible Belt'' as an element of a room-size installation with the same name. The edition consisted of a New Testament Bible mounted on a 33-inch belt with a gold-plated Jesus belt buckle. ''The Bible Belt'' became the first edition piece of the series the Pure Products of America. In 2001 the edition series became the website pureproductsusa. ''The Bible Belt'' was followed with ''
Contract with America The Contract with America was a legislative agenda advocated by the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party during the 1994 United States House of Representatives elections, 1994 congressional election campaign. Written by Newt Gingri ...
underwear'' in 1995, an edition of cotton underwear briefs with the name of the Republican congressional campaign silkscreened on the waistband, an image of the House Speaker
Newt Gingrich Newton Leroy Gingrich (; né McPherson; born June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1 ...
on the crotch and the platform of the Contract on the seat. After the artists mailed pairs of the underwear to political leaders in Washington as gifts, they were sued by the Republican National Committee to cease and desist citing trademark infringement. In 2001 LigoranoReese published the ''W Collection'' on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision halting the counting of ballots in Florida. The Collection consisted of a ''Bush vs Gore'' dish towel, ''Money/Honey'', and the ''John Ashcroft'' snow globe. In 2004 the artists published the postcard book ''Line Up'' and sold it in Union Square during the Republican convention in NYC. ''Line Up'' depicted the Bush administration cabinet in the form of mug shots. Madness of Art editions published a limited edition set of digital prints acquired by the
New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...
. LigoranoReese's limited edition art includes mirrors, lenticulars and snow globes.


Representation

LigoranoReese is represented by
Catharine Clark Gallery Established in 1991, the Catharine Clark Gallery presents the work of contemporary, living artists using a variety of media. The gallery is located in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill Neighborhood, at 248 Utah Street. The Catharine Clark Gallery i ...
in San Francisco.


References


External links


LigoranoReese Website

Melted Away Ice Sculpture Website

PureProductsUSA Website
{{authority control New media artists American installation artists American conceptual artists Art duos