Katja Loher: Where Does Time Begin?

Anya Tish Gallery is delighted to announce the return of Swiss-born, New York-based multidisciplinary artist Katja Loher for Where Does Time Begin?, her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, featuring her latest body of work: video, videosculpture and installation.

Regarded as a leader amongst the new generation of video artists, Katja Loher discards traditionally flat, rectangular screens, and instead injects her enthralling videos into more natural, sculptural forms.

The nearly seamless fusion of the technological with the organic reflects the fantastic worlds she creates, which explore the complex balance between humans and nature, and the consequences of living in a globalized world.

Loher operates akin to a theatrical producer, joining forces with a group of creative talents including poet Gian-Maria Annovi, composer Asako Fujimoto, costume designer Ley Ouchi, and various dancers and performers to develop her visionary, collaborative work.

Through wall mounted Videoportals, hand-blown glass bubbles, floor projections and sculptural installations, the viewer enters a parallel universe of kaleidoscopic detail, which the artist calls a Miniverse.

Within these vibrant and intricate Miniverses, Loher displays mesmeric patterns constructed from dance formations and filmed from a bird’s eye view, recalling the complicity and harmony of synchronized swimmers. Performers intertwine to create letters, words and questions, while costumed dancers dressed as bees, ants and hummingbirds mimic the somatic or sonar communication inherent to those species.

Inventive, poetic, and mesmerizing to watch, Loher’s work resonates globally, addressing ecological urgencies such as the plight of pollinators, abuses of technology, and the future of humanity, while radiating the omnipresent beauty of the life sustaining processes that support our planet.

A graduate of the Fine Art Academy in Basel, Switzerland, Katja Loher (b. 1979) is an internationally recognized artist whose work has been featured in exhibitions throughout China, Japan, Europe, South America and the United States, in such venues as Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa; Museu Brasileiro de Escultura, São Paulo, Brasil; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain; Connecticut; State Hermitage Museum, Moscow, Russia; and the United Nations Pavillion, Shanghai Expo, China.

Loher was selected for the 2010 inaugural exhibition at Rome’s National Museum of the Arts of the XXIst Century (MAXXI), the 12th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennial, and the Tina B Festival for Contemporary Art in Prague, Czech Republic.

Her work can be found in several public and private collections worldwide, including the New Britain Museum, New Britain, Connecticut; 21c Museum Hotel, Bentonville, Arkansas; Credit Suisse, Geneva, Switzerland; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, Florida; eN Arts Collection, Tokyo, Japan; and Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa. Loher was recently commissioned to create a site-specific installation for the future headquarters of Swissgrid, Switzerland’s national energy company.

This video-intervention interacts directly with the interior and exterior architecture of the building and will address contemporary issues of energy, community development, the digital world, and sustainabilit