NOoSPHERE season opener, Wed@6pm

I THOUGHT WE WERE THE SAME PERSON: Artist Trio Agnes Nedregard, Moray Hillary & Torgrim Wahl Sund  September 5–30, 2012 Opening Reception: Wednesday, Sep 5, 6-10 pm with live performance by Agnes Nedregard

NOoSPHERE Arts, an artist-run, nonprofit exhibition and performance venue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, is excited to open the new gallery season with I Thought We Were the Same Person, a collaborative multimedia production partially created on site by Agnes Nedregard, Moray Hillary and Torgrim Wahl Sund. While the nomadic artist trio – based partially in Glasgow, in Paris and in Bergen – have a long history of working together, this is their very first joint show in NYC. Nedregard, Hillary and Wahl Sund will combine a series of individual works into a collective whole that explores the intricacies of identity and individualism. Quoting from their joint artist statement: “While many of us have at hand the opportunity to exercise free will of thought and action, we often forego exactly that option and find ourselves bound by the myriad of societal codes and structures. In everything from expressions of cultural taste and fashion to what we ought to be doing with our lives, there is a tendency to bend to the prevailing conventions of the times in which we live.” Two oft-cited psychological studies of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Stanford Prison Project and the Milgram Experiment, which analyzed aspects of obedience to extreme levels, demonstrate that individuals can be coerced into acting brutally and inhumanely merely by being told to do so. Through this exhibit, which spans the media of painting, performance, video, sculpture, and printmaking, the artists aim to convey their sense that “the further away you walk from dominant trends and attitudes and the deeper you dig into what being alive really means to you, the more able you become to unearth significant expressions of individual thought.” Like Alice, who disappeared down the rabbit hole to reveal a brand new world of imagination and wonder, you only need to take the plunge.

NOoSHPERE is located at 251 East Houston Street, btw. Norfolk and Suffolk Streets. Subway: F-train, Second Avenue–Lower East Side stop. Gallery hours: Tue-Sun 12-6pm. For more information, please contact the gallery at (646) 389-8229 or mail@no-in-nyc.org