What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1452753
FEBRUARY 20-26, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 9 In the same space as "Kaleidoscopic" is a special group of works, including the well-known white sculpture by Georgia O'Keeffe, "Abstraction," which has always been on view at Crystal Bridges. It's placed next to a neon sculpture by Dale Chihuly and James Carpenter that is lit from within. The neon vibrates in the glass and creates red space around it, coloring the O'Keeffe. "Having the red light of the Chihuly bounce off the O'Keeffe sculpture impacts how you see it, and (we) experience light in the world in that way," Randall says. "Even when it's not explicitly about light, it affects how people experience art." Frequent or longtime visitors to Crystal Bridges may remember the exhibit of Chihuly's glass works, which were displayed in 2017. It was among the most highly attended exhibits that the museum ever had. Randall says she is excited to get the neon sculpture out because it is an earlier, less familiar Chihuly work that was displayed 10 years ago. "Some guests may not have known it existed," Randall says. "It's interesting to look at Chihuly, who is revered by our audiences. They may think 'Isn't he a hand-blown glass artist?' It's still impeccably blown glass, but full of neon." In the same monochromatic setting as the O'Keeffe stand two pieces by Frederick Eversley including "Blue Para," a cast polyester piece, alongside "Kinetic Black Hole," and an Eleanore Mikus piece, epoxy and acrylic on wood. "Each are from different time periods (but) have a similar look and feel," Randall says. They're all on a pedestal with neon red Chihuly. It's meant to create an interesting effect of having both familiar and new objects all in the red glow. Eversley is a unique artist to include, Randall says, because the conceptual artist's casts and sculptures are formulated using math. He began his professional life at NASA as an aerospace engineer, but he continued his fascination with the celestial through art. In fact, a number of the works deal with the natural sources of light, such as the sun, moon, reflection of their light, the stars and other cosmic events. The "space section" is anchored by Noguchi's "Lunar Landscape." But Randall finds Eversley's works exciting to express interdisciplinary experiences in more accessible ways. "'Blue Para' is a cast resin rendering of parabola, a math paradigm, something he thinks is beautiful but abstract," she says. "Rendering it three dimensionally is interesting." Neither of Eversley's works, "Blue Para" and "Kinetic Black Hole," lights up but each is compelling because of how the light hits it. "Kinetic Black Hole" is a dark glass surface with a void in the middle, an O-shape reminiscent of a black hole. "He's using and playing with light shadows out of sculpture in a way that creates a central point," Randall says. "The sculpture is wrapping around itself, through the void he creates." Etienne Leopold Trouvelot is another of the interdisciplinary artists Randall chose to place on view. Six of the French naturalist's lithographs are included in "The Light Fantastic." Trouvelot worked in the U.S. as a draftsman and print maker in the late 1800s when telescopes were becoming more readily available, but he opted to view events in the night sky without one. He made thousands of astronomical drawings from the naked eye. Trouvelot's "November Meteors"was produced in 1881, but it was based on his experience of watching a meteor shower 13 years before and rendering it artistically for more than a decade. His lithographs are prints from one leatherbound hardback volume that he Jen Stark's "Kaleidoscopic" is a wall-mounted sculpture of wood, acrylic paint, archival paper, mirrors, motor and light. Guests can peer into it to see kaleidoscopic images as well. (Courtesy Image/Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas) See Light Page 37