Going in Circles

Okay, follow us here. Artist Richard Turner had an idea that started with the film Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard’s quietly devastating meditation (shot in brilliant primary colors) on the dissolution of a relationship and creative work and the prices one pays to pursue either. Starting with a trip to the island of Capri, where the gorgeous final act of the film takes place, Turner visited the distinctive Caprician house featured prominently in the film (the Casa Malaparte) himself and imagined it as the center of a mandala, a design utilized by various spiritual traditions to focus attention and establish a sacred space, which Carl Jung referred to as “a representation of the unconscious self.” Still with us? Throw in Turner’s artistic utilization of his experience living in Jaipur, India, and his fascination with Saigon, Vietnam, the Kranti Witta (an equatorial sundial in Jaipur), the Great Prakash Yantra (which measures the daily path of the sun and movement of the stars), and we’re left wondering what Turner puts in his tea every morning. And where we might be able to get some.
Nov. 1-Dec. 21, noon, 2008