NEW YORK, NY.- albertz benda is presenting Felipe Pantone: CONTACTLESS, the artist’s most ambitious New York exhibition to-date, on view from July 16 through August 28, 2020.
In recent years, Pantone has been exploring manipulatable sculptures and paintings. The interactive aspect stems from the artist's observation that information no longer flows in a linear fashion from established sources to consumers, but rather splinters into multiple channels. For example Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and other user generated content now informs traditional news and entertainment media, and vice versa.
Many of the works that Pantone created for CONTACTLESS were intended for the viewer to touch and reshape by hand. Adapting to support health guidelines that preclude physical interaction, Pantone has developed digital copies of the works on a WebGL app. This technology allows users to access accelerated 3D animations directly on standard browsers, without relying on plugins or installations.
As an artist whose output is firmly rooted in the tangible realm and who has always encouraged audience engagement, Pantone has produced a new interactive component that honors his initial concept:
“These days, we spend a lot of time behind our screens, I believe in finding new ways of digitizing the physical world as it is experienced through our devices. Why rely only on photography or video when there are new technologies available that can take us closer to the real experience? We're working with the cutting edge of web technology. These aren't mock-ups or 3D renders, but a way of faithfully experiencing how the artworks will function in real life through our mobile devices.”
Felipe Pantone [b. 1986, Buenos Aires, Argentina] lives and works in Valencia, Spain. Beginning his career as a graffiti artist at the age of twelve, he went on to receive a degree in Fine Art from University in Valencia. Recent exhibitions include Beyond the Streets New York (2019) and Los Angeles (2018) curated by Roger Gastman; Art from the Streets, ArtScience Museum, Singapore (2018); Chromadynamica Dimensional, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa, AZ (2017); and Vitality and Verve at the Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach CA (2016)
For Pantone, his art is a meditation on the ways we consume visual information. Drawing inspiration from kinetic artists like Victor Vasarely and Carlos Cruz-Diez, Pantone's contemporary work produces the sensation of vibration as the viewer’s position changes in relation to the work. To achieve the desired effect, the artist utilizes modeling software that allows for 3D insights into a project, which canthen be translated into frescoes, murals, paintings, and sculptures giving tactile merit to what is occurring in the digital world.
