MECHANISMUS and Black & White

On display at Berg by Nordan Art, curated by Kate Bergdorf, is a pair of installations: MECHANISMUS by Igor Ballyhoo, located on the ground level, and Black & White by Imani Nayar, installed in the intimate overhead gallery. The former, in keeping with Igor's frequent style, is massive and filled with disturbing imagery. Visitors arrive at the base of a towering edifice, and are invited to climb seemingly endless flights of stairs up to a high circular platform.

There, an enormous gear slowly rotates around a surrealistic scene, with giant ships swaying in the wind and airplanes entangled overhead. Other elements in view aren't entirely appealing, and may set many viewers off: dolls hanging from the branches of a lifeless tree, disembodied breasts spurting milk into buckets, the top half of a mouth with teeth hanging from wires in the front and a uvula dangling at the back, and a peculiar looking baby marveling at a set of gears.

But all that's intended to emphasize a theme conveyed through the artist's notes. "MECHANISMUS is a metaphorical story about symbiosis of human and technology from the beginning of both entities till the present day," says Igor, further explaining about the breasts, for example (the notes being extensive), "Milkmobile is MECHANISMUS that runs endlessly on mother’s milk. Today humanity uses low paid, very often even child labor to produce as cheap products as possible. Milkmobile is my way of cutting out even that one inexpensive link by feeding modern industry directly with life energy, most precious food."

In the overhead gallery, Imani displays twelve photographs in black and white, carefully composed and often suggestive of real life images. "I started taking pics in SL out of sheer boredom. But step by step I realized that taking pics changed the way that I saw things," offers Imani. "The best way for me to capture emotion is in black and white." The exhibitions will continue through the month of June.