ARTFUL INSIGHT: Intimate Formations – Arik Levy

Whilst in the US we visited the new Please Do Not Enter gallery space in Downtown Los Angeles.

Please Do Not Enter is an LA retailer that also creates incredible spaces and platforms to support contemporary artistic creation. The two French founders, Nicolas Libert and Emmanuel Renoird sponsor and produce outdoor installations and indoor commissioned works.

Whilst the gallery space was incredible, we were mostly excited to see the incredible Arik Levy’s work in the flesh. Levy is an Israeli-born multidisciplinary artist, who now works and lives in Paris. His work is most identifiable for his large sculptural rocks pieces, which challenge shape and form.

 

 

He likes to make people feel a connection and emotion to his work and therefore a lot of his sculptures are in public spaces, or he creates his own entire environments for the audience to delve into. He likes to manipulate form and space to make us view objects in a different way.

As Levy describes…

“Life is a system of signs and symbols… where nothing is quite as it seems”

Levy’s Intimate Formations exhibition at Please Do Not Enter looked more at balance and the fragility of emotional/mental or physical balance. The twenty-five works consisted of large-scale sculptures, free-standing three-dimensional work, neon sculptures and wall-mounted mirrors. The works were made from reflective and contrasting surfaces or stainless steel and mirrors, which responded with each other in the space.

 

 

One of the most powerful aspects of the exhibition was they way that each individual work looked so simple when alone but as you got closer you could see Levy’s complex meaning when connecting it to the exhibition as a whole. The works reflected in each other made you realise the intricate detail that went into the curatorship of the exhibition.

 

 

A lot of the pieces felt as if Levy had magically mutated natural and organic objects, and expanded or melted them down to create new meaning in the form. His design experience shows his flawless ability to make ‘transitional momentums of time and space in solid form.’ (Please Do Not Enter, 2015)

This relates to a wonderful quote that Arik Levy said…

“Creation is an uncontrolled muscle”

On of the other wonderful qualities of Levy’s pieces was the way they transitioned beautifully between indoor and outdoor environments. Such as his powerful work RockGrowth350, which depicted an incredible 13ft geometric rock formation made out of polished stainless steel that acts like mirrors reflecting the environment they surround. When indoors it encompasses the stark architectural walls of the gallery, but when outside it reflects the bold colours of the natural environment. Making us view the work with different eyes.

Overall, Levy’s Intimate Formations was an incredible inspiration to our work at inSync design. It showed us that there are no boundaries to shape and form and that we should not control the muscle of creation, but instead let it guide our work.

What: Intimate Formation by Arik Levy
Where: Please Do Not Enter – Downtown LA
When: May 29th  – July 11th, 2015, 11 am – 7 pm