Rachel Berwick - The Amber Room

THE AMBER ROOM 1993 Dimensions: 12’H X 10'W X 11'D Materials: cast copal tiles, steel, light Project Venues: 1993 Nordanstad Gallery, New York, New York “The Amber Room,” is the first of a two-part installation referring to the mythologies attributed to amber. Tiles cast from copal, a fossilized tree resin, line the walls of the gallery’s entrance space creating an “amber room.” Copal is a premature form of amber and can only mature into precious amber over millions of years. A clock embedded in the wall monitors the slow maturation process of the copal into precious amber day by day. SOUNDING MEASURES 1993 Dimensions Variable Materials: cast copal (amber) rock forms containing negative impressions of death masks (rhinoceros, bear, gazelle, mt. goat, mt. lion), ultrasound measuring devices, wood Project Venues: 1993 Nordanstad Gallery, New York, New York "Sounding Measures,” the second of this two-part installation, pulls away from the visceral experience of being in amber to call attention to other bodies: the shapes of animal death masks embedded within amber “rocks.” The amber preserves the heads, but only as volume, as negative space, as absence. An ultrasound device mounted on the back of each rock form measures and displays the volume of each death mask at regular intervals.