Delaware Art Museum Looks -and Looks Again- at Illusion Drawn from Nature
This summer the Delaware Art Museum takes a concise look at the trend of illusion in today’s art world, through an exhibition titled Perception/Deception. This show is a contemporary approach to the Museum’s tradition of trompe-l’œil, or “fooling the eye.” Featuring the work of four internationally recognized contemporary artists Chul Hyun Ahn, Larry Kagan, Robert Lazzarini, and Mary Temple, it explores the subjective nature of sight by using shadow, lights, mirrors, distortion and complex mathematical equations.
Left: Chul-Hyun Ahn, Visual Echo Experiment (2005), Plywood, light, mirror, 104 x 104 x 5”Courtesy, the artist and C. Grimaldis Gallery. Photo by the artist fine arts magazine
Glowing at the forefront of the gallery are the convincing spaces of infinity created by the Korean artist Chul Hyun Ahn. Ahn has received his MFA from Maryland Institute of Art, exhibits internationally and has won multiple prestigious awards for his art. His pieces are informed by the work of artists who originally used light as a medium, such as Dan Flavin and James Turell. The artist builds these colorful light installations on sight, and constructs them mainly of industrial materials such as fluorescent tubing, plywood, mirrors and concrete blocks.
The most dizzying one of Ahn’s four works in this show, is the Tunnel (2008). This piece creates an illusion of a deep endless shaft, appearing miles below ground, though it is just two feet above the museum floor. According to Margaret Winslow, the Assistant Curator at the Delaware Art Museum, the viewer’s first impulse is to hang on to the edges of the piece despite the “do not touch” signs. This is not because the viewer wants to examine the materials, but because the depth created by the illusion is so believable. The work next to the Tunnel is a doorway, which like the well, provides the viewer with the physical experience of the never-ending space.
The alluring wall pieces completed by Ahn are influenced by minimalism. Visual Echo Experiment (2008), is colorful square grid consistent of 6 equal cubes each baring an infinite space within. Besides the illusion, which is still present in this work, there is an emphasis on geometry, repetition, and mesmerizing color. Ahn’s work demonstrates strong formal elements such as the focus on line and composition. Margaret Winslow notes the viewer needs to mentally take each piece apart in all aspects to understand how it functions in space and as a work of art.
Brooklyn-based artist, Robert Lazzarini, on the contrary, does not create space, but distorts it, by taking common objects and warping them to disorient his audience. In this exhibition the artist is focusing on objects of violence such as guns and shooting targets. Using complex mathematical equations Lazzarini creates renditions of these objects in their original materials-guns out of steel and shooting targets out of paper. The real object or model is first scanned into the computer using special software, and then printed on a prototype 3-d printer. The artist’s premise is to challenge the viewer’s habit of seeing, and confuse him or her by distorting the object in perspective in such a way, that it is not resolved no matter what vantage point it is approached from. This forces the viewer to walk around the object, and experience it on a physical level. The eyes will continuously try to “fix” the illusion, but these distorted objects exist in real space and will never look correct. According to Ms. Winslow, Lazzarini also has an interest in the “mythology of American violence.” He is working on a series of distorted broken whiskey bottles.
On the adjacent wall, large, realistic drawings of mosquitos seem to emerge from a mass of steel wire. The viewer can’t help but try to find the projection from which these insects are cast on the white gallery wall. How does Larry Kagan place these giant critters under the non-objective sculpture? Miss Winslow assures the viewer that there is no projection on the lamp above, or drawing on the wall. The secret to Kagan’s sculptures is the light cast through the steel, which is incongruous to the image. At the perfect point of light, the shadow comes into focus, creating an image of mosquitoes. The artist “spends a lot of time in his studio in the dark to create these works” states Ms. Winslow. This exhibition features 8 mosquitos hung along the back wall, 7 living and 1 dead.
Kagan, an artist living and teaching in New York, has originally received a degree in engineering. When he began making sculptures in the 1990s
he was frustrated by shadows they cast, but since then he embraced them as a medium. Because of experience with it, he has mastered layering and shading. These works reference to the hype around mosquitos from several years ago. The exquisite drawings are rendered with a confident use of line, which miraculously emerges from the wire pieces.
Right: Mary Temple, Light Fragment, 09.03.2009. Acrylic paint on sheetrock, acrylic gel, stain, and urethane on hardwood, 45 x 32 x 42”, Courtesy of the artist and Mixed Greens, NYC. Photo:Etienne Frossard.
Lastly, and most subtly of all are Mary Temple’s installations which are strategically placed in the museum. Temple exploits the viewer’s preconceived notion of sight and memory by painting trompe-l’œil shadows of foliage and cast light in her site specific installations. These works are often indistinct, but once they are discovered, the viewer will impulsively look back to find the light source. In this exhibition Mary Temple has two works, one in Fusco hall, and one in the main gallery. The large painting of light in Fusco references to both sides of the museum in which the classical arch and the vertical lines of the modernist windows are drawn together. Inside the gallery by the staircase, is another painting simulating light casted from the window, which in reality isn’t there. Temple “freezes a moment which is fleeting and temporary” according to Ms. Winslow.
The museum’s educational department has contributed to this exhibition by supplying stereoscopes, animorphs and tessellations to allow visitors to explore optical illusions. Also featured is a video presentation on the theme, as well as a range of books dealing with this topic throughout the ages. The Museum does a great job of backing the contemporary approach by historical background.
The Delaware Art Museum employs the Brandywine Tradition in trompe-l’œil, as seen in its collection, in this exhibition. These intriguing works use technology, science and math move past earlier traditions of trompe-l’œil painting, photo-realism and hyper-realistic sculpture. They challenge the idiom “seeing is believing” and focus on the tension between appearance and reality.
The show features 26 pieces, and is on view until September 25, 2011.
By Ekaterina Popova, Contributing Writer