By Allison Plitt
The Outpost Gallery in Ridgewood is hard to miss these days.
Its newest exhibit, “Checkered History: The Grid in Art & Life,” has one of its installations filling up the front windows of its gallery — a colorful, geometric sculpture of bricks made of Jell-O.
As the Jell-O in the bricks deteriorates, the artists who created the piece, Bob Seng and Lisa Hein, add fresh layers of Jell-O in mortar grids on top of the existing sculpture to keep it from collapsing.
“With a grid, you always think of enduring geometry and this is sort of accelerated decay, completely organic,” Hein said.
“The Jell-O is the structure that holds up the mortar until the mortar sets,” Seng said. “Then when the Jell-O decays, the mortar becomes the structure to hold the Jell-O in place, so it does a total reversal.”
Such creations of whimsicality, like “Jell-O Brick Window” are the dreams of which Outpost is made. A non-profit organization that has been in existence for 25 years, Outpost was originally in Williamsburg, but moved to Ridgewood in 2009.
Ruth Kahn, director and co-founder of Outpost, explained the organization’s work.
“Our main mission is that we do artists’ residencies for video art, sound design, and a little bit of interactive programming,” she said. “When we moved to Ridgewood, we acquired an event space that allows us to do exhibits, so we present two gallery shows every year. We have a lot of experimental music performances several times a month throughout the year and video screenings.”
“Checkered History” is the largest exhibit Outpost has presented to the public.
About 60 artists participated in the show to create 100 objects concerning “the grid as a tool for creative expression.” The show combines pieces from various forms of art, including painting, sculpture, textiles, videos and interactive works.
Since Outpost is situated on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, many artists in the show are from Brooklyn.
Many, however, are from Queens, including Jackson Heights’ artist, Jean Foos, who contributed a sculpture titled “A Broken Mirror.” “Foos’ sculpture is amazing,” Kahn said. “People think they are two little pillows because they are on the floor propped up against a wall, but, in fact, they are ceramic.”
Another eye-catching work in the show is David Weinstein’s 20-feet-by-20-feet canvas called, “Illuminated Man.” Weinstein, who spent nearly two years sporadically creating the piece, described the history behind the grid-like designs on the fabric.
“I originally designed it to be a musical composition where it would lie completely on the floor and the musician would stand on it and follow patterns,” Weinstein said. “There were no rules about notes or anything. It’s full of all of these little math games, patterns, and cartoons mixed together.”
On Sunday, artist/scholar Peggy Reynolds will give a talk at Outpost at 2 p.m. Reynolds, who received a doctoral degree in the field of Science and Technology Studies, will read from her essay, “A Genealogy of the Grid.”
Throughout the exhibit, people can pickup postcards displaying the artists’ works, while Reynold’s essay is written on the back of the cards with comments such as, “The grid, a long-lived human construct, has initiated some of the greatest changes…This orthogonal arrangement of thread or lines on earth, plan, map, canvas, or in abstract space…. has proven instrumental in helping humans (re)orient themselves in a world it has helped them (re)configure. To live in a gridded city is to exist outside of nature.”
On Sunday, Oct. 25, from 2 p.m. -5 p.m, Outpost will be re-creating a grid-based, musical performance by Max Newhouse, an avant-garde composer who died in 2009.
The organization will invite the public to a listening session of Newhouse’s legendary 1979 sound installation, “Five Russians.” According to Outpost’s website, the composer and percussionist was recognized in New York City “for his permanent sound installation in perpetual play under a subway grating in Times Square.”
If You Go
Checkered History
When: Through Oct. 30
Where: Outpost, 1665 Norman St., Ridgewood
Contact: (718) 599-2385
Website: www.outpo
