Marvelli Gallery is pleased to present The Square, a work by Christine Rebet in the project room of the gallery. The Square reenacts Samuel Beckett’s quadrilateral ballet, “Quad,” which was written and choreographed for German TV in 1981. In Beckett’s original, 9 1/2 minute, televised version, four dancers in colored hoods move counter-clockwise along the sides and diagonals of a square, carefully avoiding its center.

This reenactment, a 2-minute looped animation, shot on 16mm film, replaces Beckett’s protagonists with the powdered residues of metal, wood, plaster and clay, basic elements used in both artistic work and the construction of cities. The powders imitate the shuffling movements of Beckett’s dancers, respecting and avoiding the square’s center, until they eventually exhaust its surface, which ruptures and fragments. The animation is projected on a square, concrete plinth.

Recent uprisings and revolts in North Africa and the Middle East has revived the function and importance of the public square as a crucial gathering place for citizens and communities. The organization of these political collectives through powerful and invisible communication networks has increased the awareness of social consensus as no longer controlled by an established center of leadership but rather by autonomous actions. The center is hollow.

Christine Rebet’s drawings, performances, and hand-drawn animations (shot on 16mm/35mm film) restage the optical illusions and spiritual experiments of the late 19th-century, pre-cinematic entertainment landscape, underscoring similar deceptive devices in contemporary politics and media. Rebet was raised in Lyon, France, known for the Lumière Brothers, pioneers of cinema. She received her MFA from Columbia University this Spring, and lives and works in New York. Her work has been exhibited extensively in New York and internationally, including Le Megasin, Grenoble; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon (France); Kamel Mennour Gallery, Paris; Cartier Foundation, Paris; Parasol Unit, London; Shangai Art Museum, China; Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo; Ittinger Kunst Museum, Switzerland; Guild and Greyskhul Gallery, New York; The Kings County Biennal/James Fuentes & Kidd Yellin, New York, X-initiative, New York; NY Bruce Biennal 2010 and Site Santa Fe Eight international Biennal, The Dissolve 2010, New Mexico.

For further information or images of the work, please contact Kendall Anderson at 212 627 3363 or [email protected]