MOCA Presents Ecstasy Examining Altered States |
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| Friday, 14 October 2005 17:42 |
 LOS ANGELES.-Ecstasy: In and About Altered States features works from 1990 to the present by 30 artists whose works experiment with transcending everyday physical and mental conditions. Each artist in Ecstasy enacts his or her own intervention into human consciousness by calling attention to mechanisms of perception and expanding notions of reality. The exhibition just opened at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (in downtown Los Angeles), occupying the entire building. "MOCA historically has presented large thematic exhibitions highlighting current issues and the work of emerging artists, including A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation, Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s, and Public Offerings," said MOCA Director Jeremy Strick. "The museum continues this tradition by presenting Ecstasy, a fascinating examination of artists' interpretations of perception in contemporary art." Ecstasy brings together imaginative works that create a heightened sensory experience for the viewer that elicits myriad responses, including awe and surprise, humor and delight, even confusion and sublime contemplation. The exhibition includes a wide spectrum of artistic practices, such as installation, painting, sculpture, video, photography, and new media of many new or rarely exhibited works by both established and emerging artists: Franz Ackermann, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Francis Alÿs, Chiho Aoshima, assume vivid astro focus, Massimo Bartolini, Tatsurou Bashi, Glenn Brown, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Olafur Eliasson, Lara Favaretto, Sylvie Fleury, Tom Friedman, Rodney Graham, Jeppe Hein, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Ann Veronica Janssens, Ann Lislegaard, Matt Mullican, Takashi Murakami, Paul Noble, Roxy Paine, Charles Ray, Erwin Redl, Pipilotti Rist, Paul Sietsema, Fred Tomaselli, and Klaus Weber.
Ecstasy explores two distinct areas of perceptional experimentation. The first, more representational vein of the exhibition includes works which either represent or incorporate actual pharmaceutical and organic drugs or works representing altered states that the artists themselves have undergone, while the second area consists of works that are designed to simulate or evoke an altered experience for the viewer. Some of the artists in the exhibition have produced bodies of work that fall into both representational and experiential categories. Examples of artists who represent or incorporate actual pharmaceutical and organic drugs in their works include Tom Friedman, whose Untitled (1995) is a gelatine pill capsule filled with tiny spheres of multi-colored Play-Doh. Fred Tomaselli's new large-scale mosaic-like object, Organism (2005), incorporates leaves of organic substances and other materials covered in layers of glossy clear resin. By locking the inanimate forms together, Tomaselli mimics processes of embalming fossilization. Roxy Paine's Psilocybe Cubensis Field (1997) is a simulation of 2,200 "magic" mushrooms installed as if they are growing out of the gallery floor. Super Nova (1999), by Takashi Murakami, features images of mushrooms in kaleidoscopic colors on a frieze-like surface, suggesting a psychedelic version of reality.Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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