Opening reception Saturday February 2nd 4-6pm
Open daily thereafter, Monday through Saturday 12:00 noon to 5:30pm. Closed Sundays. Through March 16th.

COPE

A special project dealing with, breathing, purity, and danger.

At CUCHIFRITOS art gallery/project space.

COPE statement:

The development of this piece followed a public conversation that Andrea Ray and Regine Basha held at the Whitney Museum's Initial Public Offering (IPO) program on October 9th, 2001. The conversation and slide presentation covered Ray's work over the past four years and unraveled the ways in which the works involve the viewer in duplicitous situations.

Andrea Ray's work combines sound, light, projections (video or slide) with specific architectural tropes as a continual investigation of our physiognomic resistance to proscribed 'safe' environments and to 'comfort' zones insinuated within public and private spaces. Implicating modernist architecture, minimalist sculpture and daily interactions in public spaces, Ray's work offers the sense of healing, serenity and comfort that is ultimately undermined by its own transparent manipulative intent. Given time, the work traces subtle transitions from ease to disease, orientation to disorientation, while drawing parallels between the development of these conditions.

Cope is literally a breathing space; a respite from The Essex Street Market, from the Lower East Side, and from New York City. It serves both as an escape and a confrontation in the context of the Essex Street Market. Three soundtracks, with distinct voices, guide you through coping 'techniques'. Listen to each of them while gazing upwards at the artificial sky and then back to the view of the street beyond the doors.

In recent months, awareness of air quality has become acute, leaving us ever more conscious of our breathing. This disturbing awareness has caused some to panic, some to stay home, some to leave town. City officials have encouraged the public to continue to work, to shop, to eat out, and to cope. There is a palpable difference between coping and learning how to cope, acknowledging and forgetting, assimilating and resisting, and in the case of this project, breathing and learning how to breathe.

COPE runs from February 2 Ð March 16. Open Monday-Saturday 12-5:30. The Essex Street Market, 120 Essex Street (corner Delancey). For more information on the project : 212.252.4076

-Regine Basha 2001.