366 (Emily Dickinson's Miraculous Year)- installation shot

The jury is still out as to how I feel about Spencer Finch’s work. I have seen it in Venice at the Biennale, in his studio on a visit, on the High Line and now in an exhibition at Postmasters Gallery which runs through November 28th. Finch explores the themes of color, light, memory and perception in his work. While I enjoy the concepts he explores, I am just not always sold on the way he goes about it. There is something about his work that seems too forced for me–as if it is trying to be too cerebral, too cool. I did , however, very much like the two works in the main gallery at Postmasters.

The Shield of Achilles (Night Sky Over Troy 1184 BC)

One, called The Shield of Achilles (Night Sky Over Troy 1184 B.C.), consists of tin cans with multiple tiny holes punched in them letting through blue light that shines down on the space below. 384 cans hang from the ceiling and each one represents a single star. The work is based on a catalog of the 48 constellations named by the ancient Greeks. “The magnitude and wavelength of each star is accurately depicted by the color of the light and the size of the pinhole. The hanging height of each star is determined by its distance (in light years) from earth.” There is a carpet for viewers to lay on, in fact, I almost stepped on someone at the opening as I gazed upward not realizing people were below me.

366 (Emily Dickinson's Miraculous Year)-detail

Another work on view, 366 (Emily Dickinson’s Miraculous Year) includes candles placed in a spiral in which the subsequent candle does not get lit until the previous one has burned all the way down. It is based on the year 1862 when the poet wrote 366 poems in 365 days. He refers to the work as a “candle sculpture” which will burn for exactly one year, each candle burns for 24 hours. The color of each candle “matches a color mentioned in the corresponding poem; poems in which no color is mentioned are made out of natural paraffin.” Even I have to admit that it is a pretty cool piece.