Rey Akdogan
Silent Partner

February 2 - March 9, 2012

Andrew Roth presents “Silent Partner,” a one-person exhibition by Rey Akdogan. The exhibition presents a new projection work, and includes a series of subtle alterations to the gallery’s light sources.

Central to the exhibition is a carousel of 80 glass slides projected through a standard Kodak projector. Akdogan constructs each slide from parts that are cut out from cinematic gels, as well as common wrappers and transparent packaging, finessing them into unique minimal assemblages. The only support structure for the layers are the glass slide mounts that hold them together. The carousel is comprised of a series of short sequences structured around variations in the materials. Their viewing parallels the experience of turning the pages of a book. Several other works in the exhibition incorporate “offcuts” from the materials used in the creation of the slides: They make tangible the ephemeral.

Akdogan states: “Hundreds of different lighting gels exist for theatrical, architectural, and cinematographic lighting. Every single gel is coded so that it can be used to create particular atmospheres or light conditions. Over the years, many different techniques have been developed. Currently, several methods are employed to integrate dyes with polymer bases to create color filters, using technical chemistry to design various atmospheres in light. Much of the everyday packaging around us also includes similar techniques to subtly filter the things it contains. The area between the coding and serialization of an immaterial, psychological concept such as atmosphere and the physical qualities of gels and packaging fascinates me. Gels are treated not as theatrical lighting but materials whose interrelation carry their own logics, and can be arranged and rearranged almost like objects.”

To coincide with the exhibition PPP Editions has published Akdogan’s #46. The book’s title points to the code in the classification system of Rosco lighting gels for magenta, a color first engineered synthetically from coal-tar dyes in the late 1850s. Limited to 200 copies, the book unfolds as a hand-held slide projection and was conceived as an extended footnote to the carousel and the exhibition’s lighting alterations.

Rey Akdogan was born in Germany and lives and works in New York. She studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and took part in The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Recent one-person exhibitions include “Carousels, Rolls and Offcuts” at Sutton Lane in London and “Universal Fittings” at Common Room2, New York.