Julianne Swartz Featured in Inaugural Exhibition at Brown's Cohen Gallery

Julianne Swartz Featured in Inaugural Exhibition at Brown's Cohen Gallery

Loop: Works by Julianne Swartz will be the inaugural exhibition of the Cohen Gallery at Brown University's Perry and Marty Granoff Center for Creative Arts, opening this Friday, Feb. 4, following an artist's lecture at 5:30 pm in the Martinos Auditorium. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, will run through Friday, March 18, 2011.

Loop is an eight-channel soundtrack made of electrical wire and speakers; its intimate whispers and hums encourage an interactive experience with the viewer. The exhibition also includes the artist's camera-less video works and a site-specific sculpture designed to explore the gallery's new and unique space.

New art, indoors and out

With optical lenses and Plexiglas, Swartz uses natural light to project images outside the building's windows onto a screen inside, unifying the internal and external spaces. The sculpture, Floor to Ceiling, uses electrical currents to create a magnetic field around two thin rods of stainless steel - one suspended from the ceiling and another balanced on the floor - demonstrating the strength of magnetic force in direct opposition to gravity.

"With equal importance placed upon negative space - ambient sound, interruptions of sculptural line, and the distance between outside and inside... [Swartz is] challenging us to rethink our interpretations of art, object, space, and time," said exhibition curators Jo-Ann Conklin and Natashed Khandekar.

The Cohen Gallery is located at 154 Angell St, Providence. Gallery hours are Wed-Fri from 10am-4 pm.