NEW YORK, NY.- Ryan Lee is presenting Apocalypse Management and Circular Lament, two animations by multimedia artist Chris Doyle. Apocalypse Management (2009) begins and ends its 5:33 minute loop with a man lying down in white space, his head resting on his forearms. Devastation slowly fills in the scene around him: a crumpled car and wooden beams jutting out of fallen buildings, until it becomes clear that the man is trapped underneath a mound of rubble. Other figures are similarly stuck in their predicaments, unable to climb out of a crevice or find their way to stable ground. Caught in the aftermath of a mysterious disaster, the figures of Apocalypse Management remain in the moments between shock, grief, and recovery.
Apocalypse Management was commissioned by MASS MoCA for These Days: Elegies for Modern Times, curated by Denise Markonish. It is the artist's first work in a planned series of five animations based on The Course of Empire, a series of five paintings produced by Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole from 1833 to 1836. Both Doyle's animations and Cole's romantic landscape paintings explore the cycle of human civilization.
Circular Lament (2016) is a kaleidoscopic animation that explores the cultural processing of natural imagery. Throughout its 5:44 minute loop, natural lifeforms interact with their stylized counterparts across constantly shifting layers of jewel-toned floral and geometric designs. Branches grow intertwined with decorated vines, water droplets form among radiating circles, and butterflies wander through this thicket of vibrant patterns. Circular Lament ultimately imagines an exuberant mix of the technological, organic, and ornamental.
Chris Doyle (b. 1959, Pennsylvania) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from Boston College and a Masters in Architecture from Harvard University. Doyle has exhibited widely, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Queens Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, MASS MoCA, San Jose Museum of Art, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Tang Teaching Museum, Wellin Museum of Art, Sculpture Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center, and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. His temporary and permanent urban projects include commissions for the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia; the U.S. Ambassador's residence in Stockholm, Sweden; Times Square, New York; and in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Wave Hill in New York City, among many other national and international public art commissions. In 2014, Doyle received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection Prize.
