Untitled Observations spacetime April 16 commencing 615PM Self Portrait spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean 2004 Pigment Print on Cotton Rag 24” x 100”
untitled observations
(pictured) Galileo’s small wash drawings of the moon accomplished by the telescopic images projected on to a sheet of paper…anticipated the independent landscape in the history of art….by applying the same painterly logic… Galileo discovered what had eluded astronomers for centuries.
Samuel Y. Edgerton, 1991
“The relationship between the telescope and our understanding of the dimensions of the universe is in many ways the story of modernity... that changed the way we see ourselves…Through the telescope, man completed the intellectual journey begun two centuries earlier with the introduction of perspective into art.”
— Richard Panek, 1998
untitled observations spacetime (2001 - 2007) investigates the nuances of seeing and knowing through the process of collecting images, thoughts, and experiences in the wake of “911” (Note 1). Exhibited in the form of panoramas and singularly focused still and video works at multiple sites on Eastern Long Island where the landscape is a picture of Manhattan (Note 2) a century ago.
Representing the natural history of everyday life in which notions of beauty, art, science, and myth are investigated. Such as how images produced by technology - the camera and telescope - mirroring our world evoke profoundly different ideas than pictorial representations made by hand from memory. Sandrow’s process mirrors the practice of notable Paduan, Galileo Galilei (Note 3) use of a camera obscura to project telescopic images that he traced on paper (pictured, l, from Sidereus Nuncias). A method that led to his challenging 2000 years of Aristotelian thinking: discovery of the moon’s rocky surface. A contemporary influence and inspiration for Sandrow’s work is Nancy Holt: an artist whose work, including Holes of Light and Locators, “provided a new lens for observing natural phenomena.” (Note 4)
Viewing primary elements of the visible world places observations and beliefs in specific cultural (matriarchy or patriarchy) and science-based contexts; time frames of lunar or solar calendars. Live streams position viewers’ memories as having been “firsthand” as shown in the collective experience of “911.” “Looking to the skies” to foretell a lunar eclipse is now “looking online” at NASA “Index To Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses”. “Mapping” has a new meaning (Note 5) when applied to global technology as this information revolution profoundly affects the world in all dimensions.
I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
— Buckminster Fuller 1980
Untitled Observations Nov 8 commencing 7:30 PM Lunar Eclipse Self Portrait I spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill
2004 7.5” x 13.5” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag
Untitled Observations Nov 8 commencing 7:30 PM Lunar Eclipse Self Portrait III spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill 2004 24”x24” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag
Untitled Observations July 13 commencing 8PM (top) and commencing 9PM (below) Self Portrait spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill 24”x 101” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag 2006
Technology-enabled historians predicted that on July 13 the full moon would be at that same precise angle to the sun as when Van Gogh painted his celebrated painting Moonrise. My photographs (July 13) show the evening sky to be as colorful as when he made his brush strokes en plein air (1889). Art historians concluded, “he wanted his subjects at hand.” While gazing at the sky or viewing art in a museum one views past and present simultaneously - such instances of “Look back time” are also experienced looking through the telescope and camera.
Untitled Observations Nov 8 commencing 7:30 PM Lunar Eclipse Self Portrait IV spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill 2004 130” x 24” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag
Untitled Observations Nov 8 commencing 7:30 PM Lunar Eclipse Self Portrait IV spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill 2004
130” x 24” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag
Untitled Observations Nov 8 commencing 7:30 PM Lunar Eclipse Self Portrait IV spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill 2004 130” x 24” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag
Untitled Observations Nov 8 commencing 4:30 PM Lunar Eclipse Self Portrait II spacetime
Mecox Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean Watermill 2004
24” x 72” Pigment Print on Cotton Rag
Could a universe exist without any conscious inhabitants whatever? Is there something special about our particular location in the universe, either in space or time?
Roger Penrose, 1965
Note 1: The morning of 911, Sandrow was in Washington DC at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, across from the White House, for the opening reception of the national tour of her installation time(space) in the exhibit, Response to Place.
Note 2: Sandrow lived and worked in her Manhattan studios from 1975 to 2006, where her series water life (1998) similarly juxtaposed the natural world of Manhattan to Eastern Long Island while living part-time in Shinnecock Hills 1976 - 2006.
Note 3: The white cockerel whose path crossed with Sandrow in the woods in March 2006, a Chance Encounter, is a Paduan (Italian) as was Galileo.
Note 4: https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites/nancy-holt-sun-tunnels
Note 5: (2005) Illustrated in the public reading/performance of Poe’s Eureka (commencing 3:00 pm May 21, 2005); documented in Observational Findings Mt. Vernon Park spacetime commissioned by (then) Contemporary Museum Director Thom Collins.