Spoiler alert, the show involves
some Olafur Eliasson-like optical illusion work, and reading about the
paintings ahead of time might ruin the experience of the illusion. So if you’re
gonna go, stop reading. If you think that makes the show sound gimmicky and you’re
already turned off, well, at least you’re still reading, so I feel good about
that. Anyway, I walked into the show on the suggestion of a painting friend and
was a little disappointed. It’s more or less a room of white canvases broken up
on the wall by a few black canvases. As unoffensive as this kind of minimalism is,
now that it has been fully separated from its original context, it also can be
hella boring. But as I feigned interest to humor my painting bud, something
very nice happened. The white paintings transformed, Hyper-Colors style, into very
subtle gradations of bright pastel colors. As best as I can figure, either I am
a lazy looker and just didn’t notice the gradation at first or, and I am running
with this explanations, your brain auto-color-corrects for you. When you’re in
a room of fluorescent light, instead of seeing that light as it is (i.e., green),
your eye sees it as white because it is conditioned to see light as white. But
the more you look at the paintings, your brain starts to notice the flecks of
color and then the subtle gradations rush at you, and all the white paintings
are transformed instantaneously into a pleasant subtle palate. Gimmicky, sure,
but I thought it was fun, and as conceptual op-art goes, I thought it was
pretty damn cool.
Through Apr. 14th
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