Courtesy of Yvon Lambert

Zilvinas Kempinas is a name that has been popping up in New York for several years now. Since he graduated from Hunter in 2002 his art has been easily recognized in museum, art fair and gallery exhibitions on both coasts. He is best known for his signature material, unwound magnetic tape, which he uses to sculptural effect in both kinetic and static installations. I have come to admire Kampinas as the master of material simplicity. His work often reaches overwhelming complexity with a graceful economy of means.

His latest exhibit, Ballroom, which opened on Thursday at Yvon Lambert, was a pleasant surprise. I found Kempinas’ familiar style tempered with a sense of discovery. Though the installation falls within range of the artist’s interests it is imbued with a sense of color and rambunctious energy which seems altogether new.

Bands of magnetic tape twirl in merry circles, propelled by a humming array of fans. The space, one cavernous room in the back of the gallery, is unlit except for a small armada of spinning florescent bulbs. Light, movement, and sound reverberate throughout, pooling on the surface of massive sheets of reflective vinyl. Gone is the understated restraint of earlier pieces. Instead Ballroom is a massive, spinning, neon monster. Here we feel the same calculated use of movement and space taken to far flung extremes. One might imagine it as the cerebral lovechild of an acid induced rendezvous between Anish Kapoor and Olafar Eliason. The result is less meditative than it is playfully transcendent. Ballroom is a disco ball revelation, perhaps like what one might find were they to look inside of Cy Twombly’s head. Standing in the middle of this space, I was awed; I no longer felt aware of space but collapsed into it.