Radical Spirit

Radical Spirit was a large scale, site specific installation built inside the sanctuary of the Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It included pirate television broadcast, monumental sculpture, projected video installation, and a performance. The exhibition was open to the public September 28–October 2, 2010 during which time the broadcast signal was receivable by the local public on their television sets on analog channel 17.

 

Video projections transformed the church’s ceiling into a glowing open sky filled with images of people ascending against the backdrop of New York City. This multi-channel video spanned the entire ceiling of the church, with an individual projection for each of the eight ceiling panels. Flooded beneath the video’s light, a monumental sculpture filled the church sanctuary floor. 

 

Seen only through televisions scattered throughout the space and receiving the pirate broadcast signal, Case-Leal, hidden high in the church’s bell tower, dismantled magazines, rebound the pages end to end, and hand rolled them into scrolls. For the duration of the exhibition the artist sat in the bell tower monastically creating these scrolls, periodically bringing them down to reside amongst the smaller sculptural works that occupied the parlor level below.