Aug. 23, 2013

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art to exhibit video installation during Fall Line Fest, Sept. 6-7

Aziz + Cucher’s Synaptic Bliss will enliven the VCU Institute for Contemporary Art site and serve as festival gathering spot

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By Carrie Culpepper
Mutual Admiration Society

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art presents a limited run of the four-channel video “Synaptic Bliss” by Aziz + Cucher during the Richmond Fall Line Fest Sept. 6-7 with an artist talk that is open to the public on Friday, Sept. 6.

The viewing takes place on the future site of the ICA at the corner of Broad and Belvidere streets, where four screens set within Portable On Demand Storage cubes will simultaneously play “Synaptic Bliss.” The space will include an AstroTurf viewing area. Indicating the ICA’s future role in the community as a place for exchanging ideas, the site will serve as a gathering spot for the Fall Line Fest with food and beverage trucks gathered there.

Launched in 2003, the series of works collectively known as “Synaptic Bliss” explore ideas of a digital consciousness, as well as the blurring of the distinctions between the body and its environment, the exterior and the interior, and the organic and the artificial. The works in this ongoing series include a variety of media, ranging from architectural installations to video projections and environments, as well as digital prints and hand-woven rugs.

“This powerful work by pioneering video artists Aziz + Cucher is a teaser of what’s to come from the ICA,” said ICA Director Lisa Freiman. “We plan to bring a continuous stream of important new art from across the country and around the world and to forge these types of partnerships with the local community when the ICA opens in 2015.”

The Fall Line Fest features a full lineup of concerts and events in the Richmond Arts & Cultural District along Broad Street including special exhibitions at 1708 Gallery, Quirk, Art180 and others, as well as a mural that Richmond street artist HAM is painting at 101 W. Marshall St.

The artist talk by Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher, who make up the artist collective Aziz + Cucher, takes place at the Grace Street Theater Friday, Sept. 6, at 4 p.m. The talk is free and open to the public.

PODS is sponsoring the ICA art pavilion at the Fall Line Fest. Altria provided a marketing grant to the ICA for the project.