Reihan Salam, Boru O’Brien O’Connell and Meredith James at LaMontagne Gallery

By April MacIntyre Dec 8, 2010, 5:44 GMT

LaMontagne Gallery announced the latest exhibit: More Information Has Been Transmitted via the Telegraph, an exhibition of new photography and video by Boru O\'Brien O\'Connell.

A special exhibit will soon happen in South Boston at the LaMontagne Gallery.

Founded to create an environment in Boston for the display and sale of emerging contemporary artists, the LaMontagne Gallery is located in South Boston on East Second Street and features visual, sound and performance artists based in Boston and beyond.

LaMontagne Gallery announced the latest exhibit: More Information Has Been Transmitted via the Telegraph, an exhibition of new photography and video by Boru O'Brien O'Connell. 

The title alludes to a line from the Scopes Trial, which occurred in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee in 1925, and prosecuted public school teacher John T. Scopes for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution.

From the LaMontagne Gallery:

For this exhibition, O’Connell mixes a selection of subjects and surroundings from the original trial with those from a dramatic re-enactment of it held annually in Dayton. 

In black and white photographs, these fragments are seen from various angles.   In a three channel video installation, the play's amateur actors each cull a line from memory, while the artist attempts to follow along on a split-screen.

Here, the exhibition's title is revealed as a reflexive misquote in a deconstruction game of articulation and understanding.  Along the way, the artist has imposed himself through these various interruptions.  They are obstacles on a path to avoid the generational loss that occurs through repetition, raising the complicated notion of preserving a truth.  While the trial’s debate can serve as an open arena full of static archetypes and ideals, ready to be re-purposed, there can also exist the unexpectedly violent evacuation of perspective and medium by way of a gunshot into an otherwise finished work.  Or perhaps the gunshot is a bonding agent?

As much as it could be said that the history of the United States is one of great political debate, there exists an equally rich tradition towards the simulation of that debate. Much of the interest in this subject results from the fact that the trial was itself a contrivance.  After the event’s adoption into popular culture through stage and film, it continues here in an endless loop, perhaps with the intention of preserving a cultural legacy, but one wanting for any true legal precedent.  While the case proposed to bear out the arguments of fundamentalism and modernism on the right to teach evolutionary theory, these pieces point to the varying implementations of theater, and its relationship and meaning to those utilizing it.

Boru O’Brien O’Connell lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is an MFA candidate at Bard College and is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.  

LaMontagne Gallery is also pleased to present in the project space The Invention of Morel Pages 86-91, a double projection video installation by Meredith James.

Meredith James' recent exhibitions include: Espalier at Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, and Experiment at theInstitute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

For the occasion of the exhibition there will be a collaborative poster between Boru O’Brien O’Connell and Meredith James, featuring a text by conservative political commentator Reihan Salam.

Exhibition Dates: December 11 - January 20, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday December 11, 6pm - 8pm