The Beautiful Changes, an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photographs, works on paper, and video that explores the transient nature of beauty, will be on view at RH Contemporary Art in Chelsea from July 17 – September 13, 2014. The exhibition will survey work by more than a dozen artists from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Netherlands, and Norway. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, July 17, from 6-8 p.m.

The Beautiful Changes includes recent work by Øystein Aasan, Brice Bischoff, Srijon Chowdhury, Koen Delaere, Stephan Dill, Jorunn Hancke Øgstad, Oskar Schmidt, Niels Sievers, Roni Stretch, Shaan Syed, Henning Rogge, Tyra Tingleff, and the artist collective Troika. More than half of the artists will be showing their work in New York City for the first time.

The exhibition title comes from a poem of the same name by the Pulitzer prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur and refers to beauty as a changing entity and to transformation as a as a potential source of beauty. Many of the works reflect a form of change, whether by exploring variations in imagery or by probing elements of decay, growth, or evolution. The paintings in the exhibition range from austerely minimalist compositions to visually luscious abstractions, while the photographs include both highly composed images and spontaneous explorations of the photographic process.

Exhibition Overview

Among the highlights in The Beautiful Changes will be a new video installation entitled Time only exists so that everything does not happen at once by the London-based artist collective Troika. At Art Basel 2014, Troika’s work was on view in the Unlimited section where it was an undisputed standout of the fair.

Many of the paintings in the exhibition confront viewers with their own need to make meaning from visual signs. In Berlin-based artist Stephan Dill’s series Psychedelic Beauty, cryptic forms such as crop circles or unintelligible hieroglyphics appear against worked over backgrounds of rust and gray. Jorunn Hancke Øgstad, a Berlin and Oslo-based artist, imposes grids onto multicolored backgrounds in her paintings with an air of experimentation. Øystein Aasan, based in Berlin, also works with the grid, to both break apart narratives and formulate new ones, working and reworking lattices of overlapping lines.

Tyra Tingleff, who lives and works in Berlin and London, creates sensually rich paintings with colors that appear to dance on the linen surfaces. In the Netherlands, Koen Delaere views his paintings as evidence of the collaborations and performances leading to their creation. His current work features paint ripples in corrugated surfaces as colors swirl within the thickly applied material.

Berlin-based Niels Sievers uses traditional and graffiti-inspired painting techniques to create rich and ominous landscapes. Srijon Chowdhury, working in Los Angeles, paints floral imagery that appeals to the viewer’s sense of the mythic and universal.

Roni Stretch, also based in Los Angeles, crates representations of crumpled paper that slowly take shape before the viewer’s eyes, as delicately rendered folds and creases emerge from the flat surface. London-based Shaan Syed paints multiple colored rays that fan out from a black rectangle, suggesting concert lights emanating from a stage.

Three photographers presented in The Beautiful Changes engage with elements of photographic history and process in their work. Brice Bischoff’s Bronson Caves series explores the use of color and light in manmade caves used by Hollywood films in Los Angeles. Berlin-based Oskar Schmidt’s portraits of a woman facing away from the camera leave the viewers to discern her identity through a series of small gestures captured across the sequence of work. In Henning Rogge’s verdant and lush photographs of WWII bomb craters in the German countryside, little evidence exists of the violence that created the landscape. As with other work in the exhibition, Rogge’s photographs considers the aesthetic element inherent in transformation and how that change can generate or inspire beauty.

Random International Installation Held Over Through September 13

In addition, an installation by Random International at RH Contemporary Art has been extended through September 13. The London-based studio Random International created Rain Room, which debuted to high acclaim at the Museum of Modern Art last year. The installation, Audience, 2008, asks the viewer to become the subject of the work. Viewers are allowed to step up on a platform, which immediately draws the attention of a field of small “robots” each with a mirror, which focuses on the viewer in an uncannily human-like manner. The mirrors collectively turn to face the approaching visitor in one synchronized movement using facial recognition technology. Audience was the first work by Random International to invite audience participation in a spatial sense and captures the transitory feelings of being in the public eye.