303 Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new work by Marina Pinsky. Based on color comparison tools used in the field, the home and the body - as regimented by the food industry - Pinsky has created a series of colorful, hand-painted sculptural objects. Corresponding to the gradient of such tools as the Forel-Ule scale of water quality measurement, these colorful extractions encapsulate Pinsky’s interest in the through-line between medicine, agribusiness and photographic technology.
The Forel-Ule scale is a color gradient used to monitor the quality of natural waters in oceanography and related fields. The original color scale is made up of precisely dyed liquids in small glass vials, which the observer uses as a comparison chart to the waterway being studied. In the last several years, multiple scientists and educators have released scientific papers detailing how “citizen scientists” can make their own water measurement devices with accessible materials such as photographic gels and 3D printed plans. In the work Plein Air (Forel-Ule-Scale Fan), Pinsky interprets the colors of the glass vials and the photographic filters into a third scale by painting the translucent colors on fan blades made of water-jet cut glass.
Pinsky continued this procedure for a series of painted glass fans based on various color comparators for testing concentrations of specific chemical impurities in water.
In Plein Air (SalmoFan) Pinsky paints the optical range used by the aquaculture industry to dye farmed salmon flesh with Canthaxanthin to match consumer color preferences.
The Forel-Ule Scale returns in the 13-Month Calendar Clock, a digitally embroidered work based on a calendar system actively promoted by industrialists of the early 20th century, which consisted of thirteen months of exactly 28 days plus one “year day”. Largely supported by George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, the International Fixed Calendar League unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to adopt this new division of time for general use.
Pinsky’s painted objects continue a historical/chemical excavation unearthed during her work on the 2016 exhibition Dyed Channel at Kunsthalle Basel, its title based on the 1986 Sandoz chemical disaster which colored the Rhine river red. Through her research, a through-line began to emerge between medicine, agribusiness and photographic technology which has informed many of her works since.
‘Marina Pinsky, Reagent’ will open at 303 Gallery on March 5th, and will be on view through April 1, 2022. This body of work first appeared as part of Pinsky’s solo exhibition ‘Marina Pinsky, Undertow‘ at Simian, Copenhagen in 2021.
For further information on Marina Pinsky, visit her artist page or contact Erika Weiss at erika@303gallery.com.
Marina Pinsky examines the way in which we can read images as material, spatial, and ideological models of the world. Using photography as a basis, she creates artworks in a range of media that expand lens-based ways of seeing into three dimensions, often using sculptural means. Her work has been shown in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; WIELS, Brussels, Belgium; Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands; SMAK, Ghent, Belgium; and Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Germany. Her work was included in the 13th Biennale de Lyon in 2015, the 1st edition of the Riga Biennial in 2018, and the 2nd edition of the Hammer Museum's biennial exhibition Made in LA in 2014. Dyed Channel, a solo presentation, opened at Kunsthalle Basel in 2016. In 2021, Pinsky presented a solo exhibition, Undertow at Simian, Copenhagen. Born in Moscow and raised in the US, Pinsky currently lives in Berlin and works in Brussels.
Text adapted from Shirin Sabahi’s text for ‘Marina Pinsky, Undertow’ at Simian, Copenhagen August 28 – October 16, 2021.