This double exhibition by Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta and Sarah Rosengarten presents the compelling formal affinities of two otherwise disparate bodies of work. Housed in a former courtroom, the gallery includes the dais originally used by judge and jury, which Bjartmar Hylta raised nearly a meter for his installation. Untitled (all works 2023). The newly elevated stage makes viewers more aware of the empty space below their feet, while surrounding wall sconces and doorknobs appear confusingly low. In the platform’s new surface, the artist installed bollards upside down, so that they become holes in the stage floor, revealing their cavernous and rarely seen interiors.
Bjartmar Hylta’s landscape of inverted bollards establishes a poetic dialogue with Rosengarten’s photography Pigeons. Installed on the white walls of the gallery, the work is part of a series of photographs taken at the MIM Mineral Museum in Beirut. Consciously avoiding any recognizable figure, Rosengarten simply shows the lights reflected off the display cases and minerals in a way that resembles constellations. The artist deliberately hung the images unevenly against the walls, suggesting a certain type of failure that in turn evokes unmet expectations of museum documentation photography. Images are not representative, formal or illustrative; instead, they subtly disorient, echoing the unsettling sensation of stepping on Bjartmar Hylta’s installation.
