A current installation at the Wexner Center for the Arts “Six Solos” show, Megan Geckler‘s “Spread the Ashes of the Colors” has been a resounding hit and we are happy to share it with our readers. A time lapse video of the installation, additional photos, press quotes an the artist statement all after the break.
“Spread the ashes of the colors” – is a site specific drawing in space inside the iconic deconstructivist architectural example, the Wexner Center for the Arts, designed by Peter Eisenman, one of the NY Five. (Here is a photo of what the lobby looked like before my project was installed.) This piece was designed and created entirely on site over the span of 12 continuous days. A HD time-lapse video is posted that shows the entire installation process – set to the music from which the title was taken – Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood (Tunnels)”
PRESS QUOTES:
ArtNews proclaimed “Six Solos” at The Wexner Center for the Arts one of the 20 Top US Museum Shows of right now.
“Geckler‘s work … is not an extension of trompe l’oeil painting, but rather a site-specific project that extends the influence of Op art into the present while tacitly revising the terms and assumptions scholars and critics have used to understand a movement that has been largely consigned to the basement of art history.” — Christopher Bedford, ArtForum.com, Chief Curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts
“Her penchant for rhythm, line, light, and the illusion of depth and movement belongs as much to the realm of abstract painting, and even butts up against photography. Conventions of Op-Art and certain more playful strains of Minimalism are translated by Geckler‘s ministrations into three, and even arguably four, dimensions.” — Shana Nys Dambrot, Art Ltd.
“First, for Ms. Geckler to work in three-dimensional abstract sculpture strikes me as damned rock and roll gesture in these days, when culturally we’re so inebriated on the obvious and the sensational. To create such color and shape, and what i can best describe as playful grandeur on so many levels, in a realm that requires thought and interpretation out of its audience instead of clubbing one over the head with a Louisville Slugger of definition – well, it’s gutsy.” — CC Grady, Glasstire
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I always make one single work for each space, they are custom-built and site-specific – definitely not typical sculpture (that can be shipped from place to place and easily installed). These installations become a part of the space and use the architecture as not only a construction to work from and tie into, but also as inspiration for the form of the piece. In this case, the grid-like beams and columns that are signatures of Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Center architecture provided the inspiration for the design of “Spread the ashes of the colors”.
Generally, I think about how the viewer is going to encounter the work from all different angles, entrances and exits, inside and outside. In these works, there is a sense of play, but also seriousness because obviously these pieces take hundreds of hours to make by hand as these pieces are always giant – this one takes up all available space within the gallery lobby. The process starts with a visit, sketches, and then computer models in which we design the piece, then we step into a white box, storefront, stairwell, or in this case a cinder-block/drywall Project Space, and we begin. The process is pretty straight-forward, after 12 years of making this type of work – we have encountered all sorts of installation issues, but they just make the work more challenging and interesting.
