The collapsing of two conflicting states is the central theme of HERE AND NOW/AND NOWHERE, Tauba Auerbach’s new exhibition at Deitch Projects. The artist deliberately composed the title as an anagram. The paintings, photographic works, sculpture and the musical instrument that comprise the show are all structured around the threshold between order and randomness. The philosophical conflicts explored in the work include:

The liminality, or intermediate state between two dimensionality and three dimensionality.

The past and the present.

A combination of the two: a past three-dimensional state and a present two-dimensional state.

Being HERE vs. Being THERE, and being both HERE and THERE at once.

Randomness vs. Determinism and the unpredictable order of chaos.

In the marrying of two conflicting states, the work is also about the number 2, a concept that is inherent in the remote interdependence central to the sculptural works in the exhibition.

There are five bodies of work represented in the exhibition:

Crumple Paintings

The next generation of the Crumple paintings previously shown in Deitch Projects’ Constraction exhibition last summer and in the New Museum’s Younger Than Jesus. These new works have been created for the large space of Deitch’s 18 Wooster Street gallery and require that the viewer stand far back from the work to perceive the illusion of a crumpled surface constructed from large Ben Day dots.

Static Photographs

A new series of more representational, but still undecipherable Static photographs. They focus less on the emergence of pattern as in the previous series, also shown in Younger Than Jesus, and more on the emergence of form. They address the question of what makes something “something.”

Fold Paintings

A series of incrementally sized fold paintings, painted on raw canvas with an industrial paint sprayer. They explore the merging of a past three-dimensional state with a present two-dimensional state.

A sculpture that is half inside the gallery and half outside of it.

There will be a form resembling a black orb hanging from the gallery façade. It will blow in the breeze. Inside the gallery, there will be a light source dangling from a thin rod, moving around exactly the same way as the form outside. The sculpture is based on the phenomenon of entangled particles, two particles that, when separated from one another, continue to behave identically, even at a great distance. If you stimulate one, the other reacts too. It is as though they are supernaturally connected.

The Auerglass

The Auerglass, which is the central work in the show, is a two-person wooden pump organ designed by the artist with her friend Cameron Mesirow of the band Glasser. The instrument cannot be played alone. It requires two people to play. One player has to pump in order for the other to play and vice versa. There is a four-octave scale that is divided so that each of the two players plays every other note. Auerbach and Mesirow will play a composition written specifically for the instrument. It combines music that Auerbach wrote as a child, songs from Glasser and new material. The Auerglass will be played at the opening on September 3rd, as a prelude to a Glasser performance at 8pm on September 11th, and daily at 5pm from Tuesday through Saturday during the exhibition. Ida Falck Øien, who creates the costumes for Glasser, has created special costumes with shifting states for the Auerglass players to wear.