Time running out to see illuminating exhibit

Want to go?

WHAT: “Into the Ether: Contemporary Light Artists”

WHEN: Saturday, April 2 to Sunday, June 26

WHERE: Dayton Art Institute, 456 Belmonte Park North, Dayton

TICKETS: Admission is free for museum members; $14 adults; $11 seniors (60+), students (18+ w/ID), active military and groups (10 or more); $6 youth (ages 7-17); and free for children (ages 6 & under). Prices include admission to the special exhibition and the museum’s permanent collection.

ALSO: Docent-led tours of the special exhibition are available for individuals, groups and schools. For individual, group and college group tours, contact Donna Young at (937) 512-0152 or dyoung@daytonart.org. For K-12 school tours, contact Nicole Lomax, at (937) 223-4278, ext. 241 or schooltours@daytonart.org.

For more information about The Dayton Art Institute, visit www.daytonartinstitute.org or call the museum at (937) 223-4ART (4278).

RELATED PROGRAMS:

The museum is planning a variety of programs in connection with this exhibit. Among them:

“Just as you are watching the piece, the piece is watching you.”

— Artist Daniel Rozin

The special galleries at the Dayton Art Institute are filled with works that are both artistically pleasing and technologically fascinating. But you needn’t be a techie or an art scholar to appreciate them.

Just go and enjoy before the exhibit ends June 26.

“You don’t have to be techie at all; in fact it might divert you from seeing the art,” said New York artist Daniel Rozin, who has two pieces in the upcoming exhibit and also is responsible for the 450 mechanized penguins that will be moving into the museum over the summer. “A lot of people that try to engage on a technological level and see what makes it all work may be missing the chance to experience it on a basic level.”

Eight works by six artists will be on view when the museum opens “In the Ether: Contemporary Light Artists.” It is the first in what the museum has dubbed “The Year of The Classical Elements.” The innovative suite of exhibitions of contemporary art, all organized by museum staff members, are themed around fire, air, earth, water and ether.

This first show, focusing on ether, will highlight fire, air and ether through an investigation of light, a primary aesthetic principle in art. Grounded by the Light and Space movement of the 1960s in California, “Into the Ether” features artists James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Leo Villareal, Erwin Redl, Daniel Rozin and Diane Willow.

“If you want to see something entirely different from what you’d expect, this is the show for you,” said co-curator Katherine Siegwarth, who planned the exhibit along with chief curator Aimee Marcereau DeGalan.

Be sure to watch the videos that accompany the exhibition. They include interviews with some of the artists who explain their process as well as information about the Light and Space movement.

What you’ll see

In order to highlight the “light” structures on display, the galleries will be darker than usual. But you’ll still have sufficient light to make your way from room to room.

The pieces on display are large and fascinating and most respond when you approach them. Take Rozin’s, for example. His “Snow Mirror” picks up reflected light from your body — if you move slowly and stand in front of the camera positioned on the screen, you’ll watch your image materialize, then disappear. According to the wall text, the visual effect is designed to highlight the ephemeral nature of reality and the constant transitions of notions of self.

“All of my pieces for the past 18 years have been mirrors,” the artist explained. “All of them share the same behavior. Visitors stand in front of the piece and are reflected in one way or another.”

“Brushed Metal Mirror,” for instance, is made of 721 discs. If you peek behind the sculpture, you’ll see a tiny aperture. “Just as you are watching the piece, the piece is watching you,” Rozin explained. “After a few seconds after you leave the piece, it turns itself off.”

In addition to creating work in his studio, Rozin is a full-time professor at New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts and teaches interactive communications. “Our students learn how to use computer technology and media to communicate and create art,” he explained. “As new tools become available, artists all over the world are seeing how they can use them.”

As you can imagine, it’s a profession that’s rapidly changing. “In 1979, we were using closed circuit television and videoconferencing and in 2016 we’re using a lot of computer and internet technology,” Rozin explained. His diverse groups of graduate students include psychologists, engineers, filmmakers, doctors and designers.

Interactive experience

Like many of the light artists, interactivity and participation are central to Rozin’s work.

“It’s important to understand that the art is not necessarily the object,” he explained. “The art is the moment of the interaction. It’s you being there and lending your likeness, you being reflected. That moment is the art. Without you, the piece wouldn’t be complete; with you, it becomes a whole object. That’s unique to interactive art. A painting doesn’t change for you.”

Rozin said all of his pieces deal with the creation of image. “How do we perceive, create image?” he asks. “How does light create images?” In some pieces, he said, he is playing with the reflectivity of metal; in others, he works with a variety of other materials ranging from wood and fur to plush dolls.

The pioneers

Two of the important artists represented in the exhibition are pioneers Robert Irwin and James Turrell, both part of the Life and Space Movement of the 60s and 70s.

“It wasn’t an actual movement but a group of artists who were interested in similar concepts and materials,” DeGalan explained. The idea was to take transparent or reflective materials — glass, neon, scrims — and create installations using natural light or adding artificial light within the objects.

In the exhibit, you’ll see a piece by Irwin titled “All That Jazz.” The columnar lights in the piece are each wrapped with colored gels that vary the hues and brightness of each light. Turrell’s holograms change based on the viewer’s location.

Other artists represented

Two of the pieces in the show were created by artist Erwin Redl, who uses LED lights. Although when you first see his work titled “Fade,” it doesn’t appear to move. You’ll begin to see changes as you spend more time with it. In “Twists and Turns,” Redl employs animated blue and red lasers and acrylic plates. Your movement will set the plates in motion and scatter the projected laser beams across the room. Redl is one of the light artists who will be speaking at the museum.

Leo Villareal makes use of LEDS, custom software and electrical hardware. In “Chasing Rainbows,” you can watch endless shifts of colors and patterns. Siegwarth said when the piece was installed, she spent 20 minutes just sitting in front of it, mesmerized. Villareal is also responsible for another of the museum’s installation’s, “Star.”

Diane Willow, who will give a presentation at the University of Dayton on March 29, involves visitors by allowing us to walk through her work and manipulate color changes. It’s titled “Chromasphere,” and alludes to the orange-layer of gas around the sun.