NYET
Baker Mansion, 75 East 93rd St. New York, NY (October 1 - October 26, 2017)
Size: 12 ft. x 20 ft. x 1.5 ft.
Materials: 16 33 inch acrylic convex full dome safety mirrors, aluminum square tubing and assorted metal hardware.
Would That I Wish For (Broken Totem)
HVCCA, Peekskill, NY
Would That I Wish For (Tall Totem)
MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
Would That I Wish For (Tall Totem)
Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico
Previous Installations of Tall Totem:
NYET premiered Sunday October 1 at a 4pm concert featuring "Antiformalistic Heaven" and "Romances to the Texts from Crocodile Magazine" (US Premiere) by Dmitri Shostakovich as performed by Grammy Award Nominee Mikhail Svetlov (bass) and Olga Gurevich (piano) and sponsored by New Opera NY. The concert proceeds are for the benefit of the building restoration fund of the Baker Mansion.
The work, simply known as “Rayok” or “The Peep-show,” mocks and satirizes the anti-formalism campaign in the Soviet arts during the late-1940’s that sought to stifle any art that did not conform to the official Soviet cultural policy and resulted in a sustained campaign of persecution and criticism and toward many of the Soviet Union’s foremost composers including Shostakovich himself. It was never publicly performed during Shostakovich’s lifetime.
The installation features sixteen 33-inch dome mirrors arrayed in the pattern of a stylized eye. Each mirror reflects 180-degree views of the Baker Mansions courtyard and the viewer. In the spirit of Shostakovich, Remec addresses Stalin’s repression of the arts with an enormous eye that looms over and looks down at the viewer. Asks Remec, “is NYET the official all-powerful bureaucracy staring down the performance and its viewers or are the myriad reflections the viewers see of themselves defiantly denouncing the authoritative attempt to stifle creativity? Who is saying nyet to whom?”