NEW YORK, NY.- As the COVID-19 pandemic began to ripple across the nation,
bitforms gallery found itself in the midst of installation for Daniel Canogar's fourth solo exhibition, Billow. After considerable safety measures regarding international shipments, canceled flights, solo installation shifts, Instagram live tests, weather-permitting bike rides, and endless Zoom calls, the exhibition has finally taken shape. Director Steve Sacks and Art Technician Scott Neal used extreme caution to coordinate with Daniel Canogar and his studio, exchanging virtual advice from New York to Madrid, to make this exhibition possible. Now, the gallery finds itself faced with a new set of questions: how can it effectively share a physical installation in the middle of self-isolation? Join them for an Instagram Live tour and conversation to discuss the exhibition in the time of coronavirus with Daniel Cangoar and Steve Sacks on Wednesday, April 22. Once it is deemed safe to open doors in a controlled environment, the gallery looks forward to offering private walkthroughs of this dynamic and timely exhibition.
The data-sphere is a driving force of society and the economy, despite its invisible nature. This lack of visibility can make it difficult to comprehend how information affects daily life. Billow attempts to expose the hidden threads of data networks. Canogar's exhibition consists of six sculptural LED screens that depict abstract animations developed with data from real-time Google Trends. Colors within the animation are determined by how "hot" or popular a specific topic becomes; the more viral the search is online, the warmer the tones become. Popular queries from each day appear momentarily as overlaid text before dissolving into a smoky abstraction. Their lingering forms generate illusions of interlaced imagery.
This series continues the artists interest in the similitude between screens and textiles. Canogar plays with the idea of threads and knotted string by exposing electric data cables underneath the LED panels. Another defining element of the artist's recent work is the curving, architectural intersections of his sculptures. Rolling silhouettes of technological streams emulate the natural world of rivers, hills, and valleys. Canogar presents sculptures of the incorporeal electronic realm in the hopes of better understanding the ebb and flow of our digital times.