Andrea Galvani

“L’intelligenza del Male #5”, 2007

“N-1 #1”, 2007

“la Morte di un’immagine #5”, 2005

“la Morte di un’immagine #6”, 2006

“What I question is not only the visual representation of an idea and its meaning but reality itself. I am interested in seeding doubt. I would like to quote from Jean Baudrillard’s “The Perfect Crime”. Here the author describes perfectly the illusory nature of human perception of time and space:  

The only objective illusion is a physical truth: no object in this universe co-exists in real time with other objects. There is no correspondence between the sexes, between the stars, nor this glass and the table onto which it sits. Because light travels in space, when we look at an object, we look at it with a certain delay. This is the intrinsic disorder of creation. The absence of things to themselves, the fact that they don’t take place while seeming to, the fact that everything withdraws behind its own appearance and can therefore never be identical to itself, all this is the material illusion of the world. Real time “does not exists as one cannot be completely in the present moment, hence the reality of human beings is always virtual. On the other hand, if we say that in any given moment in time you are in a specific temporal place, you will never be in a moment in time which contains your entire experiences. And this remains at bottom the great enigma, which plunges us into terror, and from which we protect ourselves with the formal illusion of truth.”*

See/Learn more here. I also strongly, strongly suggest you read this incredible interview from which the above excerpt was taken.

Michael Kontopoulos

Machines that Almost Fall Over from Michael Kontopoulos on Vimeo.

“A system of sculptures that is constantly on the brink of collapse. My intention was to capture and sustain the exact moment of impending catastrophe and endlessly repeat it.”*

Inner Forests from Michael Kontopoulos on Vimeo.

“In “Inner Forests”, a user’s shadow is augmented and expanded by the gentle growth of trees and shrubs. The longer the user stands still, the more growth occurs. If the user moves, the growth disappears quickly.

While the notion of augmenting the human form through shadow has been widely explored in new media art, what strikes me often is the frequency with which the expectation of immediate feedback and instant gratification is rewarded. With this piece, I was interested in the concept of slow interactions, interactions that take patience and investment from the user; that develop a personal relationship between the user and their shadow rather than constructs an interface where the shadow is merely a tool.
Slow interaction rewards the user for personal investment over time.”*

See/Learn more here.

Robert Lazzarini

Chair, 2000
maple
approx 62” x 22” x 18”

Paypone, 2002 
anodized aluminum, stainless steel, plexiglass, silkscreened graphics
approx. 9 feet high
installation view

Skull, 2000
approx 14” x 3” x 8”
resin, bone, pigment

“But where did the idea of distortion come from? How did you go from sculpting objects in the Met’s collection to distorting them? 
…Conceptually, and maybe this is a stretch, it was a way for me to synthesize all these historical styles. If you go along with the notion that all art is artifice, then it follows that all art movements are a type of distortion. Impressionism, for example, is a type of distortion. Mannerism is a more overt distortion, as is medieval art with its distended figures. Distortion was how I was working through all these different periods of art and seeing each style as a variation on the way that things actually are.”*

See/Learn more here.

David Spriggs

The Paradox of Power, 2007

104 x 124 x 36 inches, Sprayed acrylic paint on multiple sheets of transparent film in display case.

Emergence of Perception, 2008

 96 x 48 x 24 inches, white acrylic on layered transparent plastic film in display case.

Perceptible Consciousness, 2001.

48 x 38 x 29 inches, acrylic on mylar

“An exploration into concepts of space and the relationships between the thresholds of the 2 and 3 dimensions; the immaterial form; perception; deconstruction; time; movement including speed and stasis; the body; the appropriation of symbols; and the strategies of power. With influences from Futurism and Cubism to current digital media art and cinema, these hybrids of two and three dimensions bring together painting, drawing, photography, digital media, and sculpture, to create a spatial image system. Topographical cross-sections of a subject are painted or drawn onto sheets of transparent film.  The sheets are specifically spaced and hung apart to reveal the appearance of three-dimensional forms in a state of suspension. Like linear perspective is to the 2D world; layered perspective allows the possibility of new representations through this illusionary image space. The multiple image planes together establish a perspective in which the viewer can alter their viewing angle to change the ‘image form’ as one walks around the piece. It is a dematerialization of the picture plane through the combining of multiple picture planes.”*

See/Learn more here.

Anselm Reyle

Untitled, 2006
119 neon tubes, chains, cable and 13 transformators

Untitled,  2005

mixed media on canvas (foil), acrylic glass 300 x 200 x 20

“Surface and colours refer to things we relate to. I like the idea that kids as well as people who have nothing to do with art can also find their own access to my work. It’s as simple as standing and waiting to cross the road, when a truck drives by and you’re fascinated by the appearance of the hood. Its’ easy.”*

See/Learn more here.

Reyle is featured in this month’s issue of Sculpture.