Use Your Illusion

Robin Rice on Visual Art: The Vitreous: Of Eyes & Optics at Esther M. Klein Gallery

by Robin Rice

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Published: Aug 18, 2009

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSI

When I studied with the late Dan Schweitzer, a pioneer of holography, it was axiomatic that technology, however magical, mysterious or profound, is not art; it is potentially a tool for making art. No one will ever confuse Dan's work with a clever science display.

The distinction between science project and artwork is one that the Klein Gallery confronts in its mission to present creative work linked to science. The current juried show "The Vitreous" began with an international call asking for art relating to perception and vision. At the unpretentious but undoubtedly fun and well-designed end, Sean Hovendick's interactive video-kaleidoscope Peep Show (pictured) is a gimmick suitable for any public location. A lens, thoughtfully placed low on the wall, records whatever happens in front of it. The moving scene is fragmented and projected kaleidoscopically on a large screen, and voil — entertainment for even the smallest child.

A related piece, David Bowen's Infrared Drawing Device, is intended to respond to viewers' proximity to sensors and produce an abstract drawing. The device is probably engaging, but was not functional when I visited.

The blurring of lines between art and science can be satisfying. Fractals are the archetypal informational diagrams that morphed into popular aesthetic objects. Dee Breger, former director of microscopy in Drexel's Department of Materials Science & Engineering, enhances images from scanning electron microscopes, including one of "brain tissue" with a similar abstract appeal. The colors are not representational but assigned, like the cold-front and high-pressure areas on a television weather map — aesthetic choices, but the primary purpose remains informational.

I imagine that the material appeal of old bits of scientific apparatus was one impulse behind Kathy Goodell's installation of suspended lenses, Watching & Waiting. The piece is attractive and one of the few in the show that results from a conscious manipulation of three-dimensional space. The use of glass in this and Sara Horne's Moon Rocks is also apt, as "vitreous" refers to the (hopefully) clear gel in the eye and to glass itself.

Robert Munn and Sara Cook make work involving lenticular lenses (a technology slightly related to holography and diffraction gratings). They call the aggressively 3-D (but flat in reality) photographs "depthography." See them — they are impressive. Although some of Munn and Cook's work is representational and animated, the ones at Klein are abstract.

Perceived visual proportions are explored in Wade von Kramm's seemingly crude pinheaded figure that casts a very coherent shadow and Artie Vierkant's interestingly accurate — and oddly foreign — print of something I am looking at right this minute. I assumed that visual cognition and object recognition would be major elements of "The Vitreous"; however, of 22 artists, only one, Cynthia Greig, addresses this key survival skill. She does it by displacing the familiar process of pencil drawing — in fact, a recording of edge extraction — onto real things. Obliterating clues that tell us where the edges of her subject are, she paints everything white, eliminating perceived texture, shadows, highlights and color. She then outlines the actual objects in pencil before photographing them. The print looks like a drawing, but its history underlines the provisional nature of visual cognition.

A few works completely escaped me. I loved the wood veneer of In Defense of Illusion (Judd) by Michelle Leftheris, but could not find what I believe is a 3-D "magic eye" image in it no matter how I tried. Similarly, the scientific basis of Desi Minchillo's monochromatically beautiful collage Picking Up the Pieces eluded me. I did discover — through online research — that the elements are cut-up price tags.

A lot goes into these exhibitions. It would be helpful for Klein Gallery to provide a sheet of information for audiences so we mustn't resort to Google searches after our visits. Don't keep us in the dark!

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

The Vitreous: Of Eyes & Optics | Through Sept. 5, Esther M. Klein Art Gallery, 3600 Market St., 215-966-6188, kleinartgallery.org

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