For Immediate Release – December 27, 2017
Truth Be Told
Artists LigoranoReese Melt TRUTH
on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration January 20, 2018
TRUTH BE TOLD, 2018, rendering by LigoranoReese
At 3:00PM on Saturday, January 20, 2018, on the first anniversary of the Trump administration, artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese unveil a 2,000-pound sculpture carved in ice of the word TRUTH in the garden of Jim Kempner Fine Art. The gallery is located at 501 West 23 Street, NY, NY.
The installation TRUTH BE TOLD speaks to this moment of alternative facts when belief supplants truth. The artists intend for the 10-foot wide, 4-foot tall sculpture to melt away – a drip, drip, drip erosion, nearly imperceptible until one day it’s gone. The disappearance will likely last a week, documented in photography and film. (The entire duration streams in real-time on meltedaway.com, artseverywhere.ca/, Facebook Live and to a network of galleries and websites in North America.)
For Nora Ligorano the materiality of ice is essential to this artwork, “Ice is a time based material and brings to mind feelings of loss and decay as it erodes. It has an elegiac feel. The sculpture’s disappearance results from human interaction, the weather and the environment. For me, the effects of climate change come more into focus.”
TRUTH BE TOLD follows the artists’ earlier Temporary Monuments. In 2008, LigoranoReese installed massive ice works of the word DEMOCRACY at the political conventions, ECONOMY on the 79th anniversary of the Great Depression, MIDDLE CLASS in 2012 in Charlotte and Tampa, THE FUTURE at the Flatiron building during the People’s Climate March in 2014 and THE AMERICAN DREAM at the RNC and DNC conventions in 2016.
“This is a hybrid artwork,” Marshall Reese says, “We’re combining sculpture, installation, performance, and an internet event to activate public space, to encourage people to think about the ways truth has changed over the past year and its effect on our country and society.”
Instagram @meltedaway, Tweeting @melted_away, #ligoranoreese, #publicart, #TruthBeTold, #Truth, #ArtActionDay
LIGORANOREESE
Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese collaborate as LigoranoReese. Their artwork examines society through images and sound from print, television, internet, and radio. They have exhibited at the Biennial of Contemporary Art, Cartegena, Columbia, Catharine Clark Gallery, Kent Fine Art, Portland Art Museum, MIT MediaLab, Museum of Arts & Design, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York Public Library, and Lincoln Center. They have received funding from the Jerome Foundation, Puffin Foundation, NYFA, NYSCA, NEA, and been in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Montalvo Arts Center, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. They are represented by Catharine Clark Gallery and Jim Kempner Fine Art.
