Michael Krondl (Artist) in New York, NY (New York) from re-title.com

Michael Krondl

Page 1 | 2 | Biography

Waterwalk,2003, digital print on vinyl

Over the last few years I have devoted myself increasingly to work in the public realm using very large-scale, photo-derived imagery. The photographs, because of their size and context cease to function in the way the medium is normally used. Instead of acting as a window onto another world as traditional photography typically does, my work, due to its scale and site-specific nature, interacts and even transforms its world.

The trompe l�oeil strategy I have been employing would be familiar to any baroque ceiling painter�even if the medium is decidedly 21st century. Waterwalk (2003) is a good example of my working process. In 2003, I was asked by the Center for Contemporary Art in Prague to create a commemorative piece to mark the first anniversary of the flooding that had devastated Prague the previous year.

Waterwalk,2003, digital print on vinyl

Waterwalk (2003) is a good example of my working process. In 2003, I was asked by the Center for Contemporary Art in Prague to create a commemorative piece to mark the first anniversary of the flooding that had devastated Prague the previous year. To make the piece, I took a series of photographs of the nearby river, digitally �seamed� these together to make one large image.

Rising Water/Falling Water, 2006

Fall, 2007, digital print on vinyl

This was then printed by a commercial billboard printer and installed on the floor of the Palmovka Synagogue, a spot heavily affected by the floods. As you stepped onto the surface of the water you were set afloat in an irrational space much as you are in a Baroque church. Here of course there were other implications. Certainly the work reminded the viewers who treaded on the image of water of both the human and natural power of destruction, of their bodies, and perhaps, in this context, even of mortality itself.

Much the same sense of the somatic peril was elicited in two site-specific installation pieces created for Black & White Gallery in New York. (Wave, 2005 and Fall, 2007.) Here, the images�which were installed both indoors and out�threatened to inundate the viewer with a cataract of falling water.

The 200-foot long waterfall installed on the low retaining wall (Rising Water/Falling Water, 2006) in front of the Katonah Museum of Art had other implications . The museum is surrounded by reservoirs that supply the water to New York City. All this water is, of course, held back by dams that are�according to the authorities�prime targets for terrorism. Nature is lovely to look at but much harder to control than we would like to think.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION : anticlockwise from top

� Waterwalk/Po hladine, 2003, digital print on vinyl. 10 x 12 m (33 x 39 ft) Installation view, Palmovka Synagogue, Prague.

� Waterwalk/Po hladine, detail.

� Wave, 2005, digital print on vinyl, 5.8 X 7 m (19 X 23 ft). Installation view:
Black & White Gallery, New York.

Wave, 2005, digital print on vinyl

IMAGE DESCRIPTION cont:

� Wave, 2005, digital print on vinyl, 5.8 X 7 m (19 X 23 ft). Installation view: Black & White Gallery, New York.

� Fall, 2007, digital print on vinyl, 3 X 20 m (9.5 X 66 ft). Installation view: Black & White Gallery, New York.

� Rising Water/Falling Water, 2006, digital print on vinyl, c. 1.5 X 60 m (5 X 200 ft). Installation view: Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY.

� Rising Water/Falling Water, 2006, detail.

New York, NY
New York
North America

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M: 1 917 749 0578
w: http://michaelkrondl.net/art.html

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Michael Krondl

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