New Directions ↗ Going Up: A Review

By Jimmy Keller
(Image above: From Abraham Ferraro’s Light Switch series)

If we go back to 335 BCE, the philosopher Aristotle just completed a theoretical literature collection expressing the functions and importances of creative expressions.

“Poetics” is one of the earliest surviving works of dramatic theory from the Greeks. We often attribute the rise of Pop Art or Dadaism with shining a direct light onto the questioning of art, but that question was asked centuries before Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein or Duchamp were born. Today, Abraham Ferraro asks that same question in the Castellani Art Museum, in an autobiographical approach exposing the norms of art making. 

New Directions ↗ Going Up is a two-part site specific installation consisting of As If…/NOT, part 3 (Sisyphus’s Neurotransmission) from Ferraro’s Light Switch series, as well as Directions (2011–present).

Ferraro explains his Directions piece best as “an ever growing series of mail-able sculptures complete with mailing address, postage, shipping labels and installation directions on them.  Pieces are shown as mailed and installation is assembled in a site-specific way reacting to the architecture of the gallery. Every time the Directions piece is exhibited 5-10 new pieces are added and mailed individually to the new venue while the older Directions are delivered by the artist, so process is evident and traceable by the viewer to the extent that the viewer may figure out exactly when and where the pieces traveled.”

Immediately through the gallery doors,  As If…/NOT, part 3 (Sisyphus’s Neurotransmission) leads the viewer in. The experience of Ferraro’s chaotic mountains of wire from floor, to ceiling, to wall, possesses an overwhelming presence as if a mad electrician just woke up his creation, a creation programmed to uproot philosophies on what art is and the processes of “making it” – both the art and as an artist, whatever we claim that to mean.

One can appreciate the trust in the viewer because finally art welcomes our sensory deprived hands to interact, as if the viewer is not only part of the art, but becomes the active component making the art beside Ferraro.

Without a switch being flicked or a button being pressed, is it art? If it’s not the gallery, nor market, nor artist, nor viewer; so what makes it worthy of being labeled as art? Without viewers it has no significance to the world, so society filters through the gallery doors. An artwork doesn’t exist without an artist dictating it exists.

Through this piece though, one can dissect the months and weeks of preparation and installation. One can trace the weighted down walls and rooted protrusions of 12.9 miles of cordage, about a five mile expansion from the last installation. One can experience the circle that Ferraro explains as his “life becoming the art.”

The face off of these two installations paired together creates a response between the space we walk as one side asks what art may be and the other echoes, “I exist here, through time.”

As viewers of a contemporary installation, we are often ignorant of the pieces and processes coming before. Especially in the Directions work, but additionally in the Light Switch series, the artist allows us to experience it through physical action and evolution. Whether as viewer, mail carrier or the artist, we witness directly and through imagination the development and dynamic interactions.

The art world, the market, the makers of definitions and the givers of little stickers of “success” are all in question today more than ever. Tomorrow will be flooded with even stronger artists, though some may crumble seeking success amid a constant circling philosophical race. 

Art culture is a constant filter seen through the same questions asked over again. In that chase, the beauty, irony, and repetition of it lies in the varying answers which each artist creates. It aligns with the story of Sisyphus and labels a space zip tied and packaged in growth as an endless metaphor of voluntary enslavement. It’s a resurfacing question few contemporary artists can escape.

But this question is asked over and over again: what lights up Ferraro’s success?

Of course the monumental presence of the works as they take over the giant gallery space, which isn’t an easy feat. Then there’s the interaction and presence of the viewer, being a part of the artwork and contributing with the artist. 

Most importantly though, as Aristotle suggested, it is the portrayal of this expression and its substance to contemporary life. While it does speak parallels with pop art, it so too does speak of the artist, deeply philosophical, curious, and tangled amongst the wires and shipped with the peculiarly packaged boxes. Someone has to push the USPS truck repeatedly up the hill though. It will be fascinating to see how the personal autobiographical concept is pushed in upcoming pieces. 

New Directions ↗ Going Up is an interaction, evolution and experience that converses of works in an immersive, influential way. You can see this installation at the Castellani Art Museum through Jan. 12, 2026.