Perception/Deception: Illusion in Contemporary Art at Delaware Art Museum

Perception/Deception: Illusion in Contemporary Art
Delaware Art Museum
May 21, 2011 – September 25, 2011
Perception/Deception: Illusion in Contemporary Art is a compelling four-artist exhibition featuring 28 sculptures and site-specific installations that explore the mysterious relationship between reality and our sense of sight. This exhibition will be on view May 21, 2011 – September 25, 2011.

The Brandywine Tradition, which is represented in the Delaware Art Museum’s collections, includes in its history a style of art dedicated to “fooling the eye” or trompe l’oeil painting. Through the use of shadow play, lights, mirrors, and complex mathematical equations, the artists included in Perception/Deception expand past this earlier tradition, presenting three-dimensional objects and installations that “fool the mind,” as participating artist Mary Temple explains. This exhibition features the work of four internationally recognized contemporary artists including Temple, Chul-Hyun Ahn, Larry Kagan, and Robert Lazzarini.

Using ordinary fluorescent tubing, mirrors, and plywood, Baltimore-based artist Chul-Hyun Ahn constructs dizzying illusions of infinity. Larry Kagan’s abstract steel sculptures cast shadows of recognizable objects such as geometric shapes and insects. Robert Lazzarini distorts objects associated with violence–guns, brass knuckles, and shooting targets–with computer software before recreating the anamorphic results in their original material. Exploring notions of environment and memory, Mary Temple will create two site-specific installations within the Museum that mimic the effects of natural light.