You never knew where artistic collaborators Ben Zamora and Etta Lilienthal—aka LILIENTHAL|ZAMORA—were going to turn up next.
They might be designing a softly minimalistic set for Washington Ensemble Theatre, or a set made entirely of screens and light at New City Theater, or building video and light installations for a collaboration between Kronos Quartet and Degenerate Art Ensemble, or creating a highly controlled but polychromatic atmospheric effect for a dance piece by Mark Haim.
But no more. Today, LILIENTHAL|ZAMORA announced that they are parting ways and “moving forward separately with [their] artistic careers.” Too bad. Etta and Ben have serious roots in theater and film—they know what it means to play with people’s eyeballs and create convincing illusions—that they’d marry with a kind of seriousness and austerity in their gallery work. And they used fluorescent tubes in angular, architectural ways—like a kid savant might play with popsicle sticks—that seemed to defy the circular, radiant nature of light light itself.
Best of luck to both. We look forward to seeing what’s next.
