This dual exhibition of Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta and Sarah Rosengarten showcases the compelling formal affinities of two otherwise disparate bodies of work. Housed in a former courtroom, the gallery includes the dais originally used by the judge and jury, which Bjartmar Hylta has raised by nearly three feet for her installation Untitled (all works 2023). The newly elevated stage makes viewers more aware of the empty space under their feet, while the surrounding wall lamps and door handles feel confusingly low. Within the new surface of the platform, the artist installed bollards upside down, so that they become holes in the stage floor, revealing their cavernous and rarely seen insides.
Bjartmar Hylta’s landscape of inverted bollards sets up a poetic dialogue with Rosengarten’s photograph Pigeon Holes. Installed on the white walls of the gallery, the work is part of a series of pictures taken at the MIM Mineral Museum in Beirut. Consciously avoiding any recognizable figures, Rosengarten merely shows the lights reflected on display cases and minerals in a manner that resembles constellations. The artist deliberately hung the images unevenly against the walls, suggesting a certain kind of failure that in turn evokes unmet expectations from museum documentation photography. The images are neither representational, formal, or illustrative; instead, they subtly disorient, echoing the unsettling feeling of walking on Bjartmar Hylta’s installation.