Photo by Paula Lobo and SOE Studio © Jorge Otero-Pailos
Jorge Otero-Pailos is a New York-based artist known for making monumental casts of historic buildings. Using his training in architecture and preservation, Otero-Pailos’ art practice deals with memory, culture, and transitions, and invites the viewer to consider buildings as powerful agents of change. His site-specific series, The Ethics of Dust, is an ongoing, decade-long investigation resulting from cleaning dust and the residue of pollution from monuments such Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament, London and the Doge’s Palace in Venice.
For New York City Center’s 75th Anniversary Season, he has created Répétiteur, an immersive, site-specific installation. In the exhibit, Otero-Pailos explores how choreography is passed from generation to generation of dancers by drawing attention to the material evidence that the seemingly immaterial transfer of dance knowledge leaves behind—the dust, and other residue, left on the surfaces of a studio by the dancers.
Illuminated casts of the studio walls gild the room in an unusual, meditative light, while a soundscape of dancers learning choreography by modern dance legend Merce Cunningham transfers viewers into the shoes of artists past.
In honor of its 75th Anniversary Season, New York City Center commissioned three visual artists for the first time in its history – conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, photographer Nina Robinson, and Otero-Pailos. The new works created are inspired by the historic building and the artists who move through it.
Répétiteur is free and on view to the public March 2 – 10 and April 29 – May 5, 10 – 6 pm at New York City Center Harkness Studio (130 W 56th St.).
For more information about Répétiteur, visit NYCityCenter.org/VisualArt.
