Misericordiam: Mournful Clacks at DUMBO Arts Festival

In Ranjit Bhatnagar's Misericordiam, an old accordion hangs in space, suspended from cords and cables. If you press one of the 4 buttons in front of it, the keys begins to move and then play the "tune" you selected. Tune, here, seemed to be more a clacking of keys than anything else and had names like "Shake."Ad Misericordiam is traditionally an appeal to pity, and in this case you start to feel bad for the old accordion still struggling along make mournful noise. 

 

It has the appeal of fascinating old mechanical things, even as it plays itself at your command. It was definitely one of the pieces I really enjoyed at the DUMBO Arts Festival last weekend. 

More from the artist here (and a lot of it is awesome.)

Naomi Grossman's Seated Woman at the DUMBO Arts Festival

Seated Woman, 2010

The DUMBO Arts Festival 2010 was, as always, a chance to stroll around a cute neighborhood and see art in a stunning backdrop, but this past Saturday was a little low energy compared to last year. I did see some nice pieces like this wire sculpture by Naomi Grossman, a NYFA MARK Program Artist. I thought the pose of the sculpture very suggestive and loaded with emotion. On the wall behind there was more amorphic wire, and from the artist's website I take it she does whole rooms of wire with furniture and people. I also love the delicacy of all the thin wires. It's very akin to making graphite pencil lines in 3D.

Another shot with my terrible camera-Seated Woman