Sensory Overload: Light, Motion, Sound, and the Optical in Art Since 1945
http://www.mam.org/exhibitions
Opening features talk by Curator Joe Ketner and artist Erwin Redl, whose 25 x 50
foot LED installation MATRIX (2007) is part of the show. Show also features a
piece by former colloquia guest Liz Phillips.
January 24, 2008 - Ongoing
CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES
The contemporary galleries reopen this month with a new installation that tracks
the development of Kinetic and Op art, whose optical stimulation and
interactivity introduced new dimensions to art. Stanley Landsman's Infinity
Chamber (1968), which has not been on view for nearly twenty years, together
with Erwin Redl's dramatic Matrix (2007), a 25 x 50 foot LED installation,
punctuate this extraordinary immersive experience.
Chronological in its presentation, the installation begins with works by Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers, two Bauhaus instructors whose ideas stimulated
the developments of these styles, followed by vibrant early Op art pieces from
the 1950s and 1960s by European and American artists such as Victor Vasarely
and Richard Anuskiewicz. The development of Albers' ideas into geometric
abstraction during the 1970s is visible in the works of artists such as Al Held
and Frank Stella, and the works of Peter Haley and Philip Taaffe and those of
the so-called post-hypnotic artists such as Bruce Pearson and James Siena show
the continuation of the optical tradition in the 1980s and 1990s. Select
images, films, and videos will be projected in two black box theaters.
The Museum has collected and exhibited new media art ever since 1967 when it
co-organized Light, Motion, Space, one of the first exhibitions on this form of
art in the United States. Sensory Overload features some of the most popular
works in the Museum's Collection as well as key works on loan from other
institutions and private collections.
