It’s no secret there are a multitude of changes taking place within the art community. Today’s fluctuating economy coupled with technology’s ability to re-evaluate time, have ushered in new possibilities that reexamine how art is supported, shown and organized, while further providing the opportunity to question one’s role within this transitioning landscape. It is with that spirit that The Gallery at (Le) Poisson Rouge is pleased to announce the opening of its forthcoming exhibition If All the World Were a Blackbird by Eco-minded, Hungarian-born, Brooklyn, NY-based installation artist EDINA TOKODI, for her first solo exhibition.
This installation also marks The Gallery at LPR’s first collaboration with The Wooster Collective, known for its 2006 partnership The Spring Street Initiative. The selection of Tokodi and collaboration between LPR and the Wooster Collective highlights the notion that fine art, no longer limited to white box norms, can embrace a new art-viewing environ, while underscoring the widely held understanding that street art is no longer limited to outdoor spaces. For the forthcoming exhibition in the Gallery at (Le) Poisson Rouge, If All the World Were a Blackbird, Edina Tokodi, one of today’s leading green graffiti artists, will create original installations, transferring her public sculptural moss graffiti pieces – most recently seen around New York City as subtle exclamation points amid the concrete – from street to scene. Bringing nature to a most unexpected atmosphere, and breaking long-held gallery norms, Tokodi will transform the Gallery at (Le) Poisson Rouge: a space hailed as a multi-media environment where fine art, music and revelry intersect.
As a public artist, Edina Tokodi feels a sense of duty to draw attention to deficiencies in our everyday life. “I think that our distance from nature is already a cliche…I believe that if everyone had a garden of their own to cultivate, we would have a much more balanced relation to our territories,” says Tokodi. “Of course,” she continues “a garden can be many things.” Her site-specific installations are inspired by Japanese Zen gardens and informed by the space’s environs, whether organic or man-made; often sheathed in steel, glass, pavement and stone and providing an unavoidable contrast to its surroundings. Surrounded by their contrasting atmosphere, Tokodi’s installations invite interaction, thus reclaiming the bond with nature. Unlike the market-driven art featured in sterile, white box galleries, Tokodi’s is meant to be to be touched, felt, and organically effect the audience. Her animated installations playfully call to mind a more familiar, environmentally friendly state, breaking cold urban norms.
As a result of this exact notion, and influenced by a variety of textures, experiences, meetings, and readings, Tokodi’s work gets reinvigorated, and herself inspired yet again to create. Whether walking the streets of New York City or interacting with its landmarks; in this circumstance the historic space that houses The Gallery at (Le) Poisson Rouge, Tokodi hopes to encountering a different set of media, art and people. With this, Tokodi’s installation organically dovetails The Gallery’s mission to foster community interaction, artistic stimulation and reigniting a renewed appreciation for the “public,” as both notion and place: drinking establishment, art gallery and performance space. With If All the World Were a Blackbird, Tokodi tackles her most complicated endeavor yet, by continuing to explore the diversity of the intricate connections between (organic) materials while still remaining close to nature.
The title of the installation, If All the World Were a Blackbird, is inspired by a children’s poems by Sándor Weöres (pronounced Voe-roesh), Hungary’s “most versatile poet.” Chosen by Tokodi for its complimenting the delicate nature of Tokodi’s work while evoking a playful take on the Utopian existence.
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About Edina Tokodi
Tokodi studied graphic design and printmaking at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. Her works have been featured in both private and public space world-wide, including: Brick Lane Gallery, London; Lana Santorelli Gallery, New York; SEPTA public transit, Philadelphia, Billboard and public sculpture exhibition, Budapest, and a solo exhibition at The Gallery at (Le) Poisson Rouge.
Born in Hungary, Edina Tokodi lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
