"The Cave" is a stone grotto at Branchville Gallery in Ridgefield, CT.
It has been used for video screenings and now has a video/ water/ kinetic installation. The space was inaugurated in July of 2005 and featured videos by Kim Connerton, Erin Cowgill, and Norene Leddy.
The videos were reviewed on July 24, 2005. L.P. Streitfeld wrote:
"curator Margaret Roleke presents Kim Connerton's personal connection to this long repressed mythology through,"Mary,"a video that weaves imagery of the artist purifying herself with water, lush red roses and portraits of Mary Magdalene with her trademark flowing red hair and red attire. Culminating years of personal explorations of 20th century icons, Connerton integrates the duality of purity/sexuality through an iconography of Eros that is both ancient and contemporary."
The Cave features an installation, through November 11, 2005, titled
"Utility of Obsession: All Things Orange" by Philip Mantione and Alysse Stepanian. L.P.Streitfeld wrote in the Stamford Advocate on Sept. 18, 2005:
"In this multimedia installation with found objects, Mantione and Stepanian establish a self-perpetuating,orange-colored system of running water from pitcher to bucket through three levels of bright orange night tables. Behind the transparent orange curtain in the confined space, the sound of running water is as calming as the shreiking from the orange-obsessed woman in the video is alienating. The nerves are further frayed by the machinations of a vibrating table, its base wrapped with bright orange caution tape. A plastic snake is a surface reminder of the primordial dangers inherent in blockages unleashed by floodings. Additional orange colored symbols such as a baseball bat ignite the conflict between public/private, security/liberation and flow/blockage. The nerveracking effect strikes at the heart of America's values, which have been summed up since 9/11 by the Orange Alert, orange representing the color of the second chakra, where emotional attachments and blockages are formed."
photo below; detail from video "Herd" by Norene Leddey
lower photo; detail of "Mary" video by Kim Connerton
