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MOCA PRESENTS GROUNDBREAKING EXHIBITION EXAMINING ALTERED STATES OF PERCEPTION
LOS ANGELES — Ecstasy: In and About Altered States features works from 1990 to the present by 30 artists whose works experiment with transcending everyday physical and mental conditions. Each artist in Ecstasy enacts his or her own intervention into human consciousness by calling attention to mechanisms of perception and expanding notions of reality. The exhibition opens October 9, 2005 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (152 North Central Avenue in downtown Los Angeles), occupying the entire building, and remains on view through February 20, 2006.
"MOCA historically has presented large thematic exhibitions highlighting current issues and the work of emerging artists, including A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation, Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s, and Public Offerings," said MOCA Director Jeremy Strick. "The museum continues this tradition by presenting Ecstasy, a fascinating examination of artists' interpretations of perception in contemporary art."
Organized by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel with the assistance of MOCA Project Coordinator Gloria Sutton, Ecstasy brings together imaginative works that create a heightened sensory experience for the viewer that elicits myriad responses, including awe and surprise, humor and delight, even confusion and sublime contemplation. The exhibition includes a wide spectrum of artistic practices, such as installation, painting, sculpture, video, photography, and new media of many new or rarely exhibited works by both established and emerging artists: Franz Ackermann, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Francis Alÿs, Chiho Aoshima, assume vivid astro focus, Massimo Bartolini, Tatsurou Bashi, Glenn Brown, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Olafur Eliasson, Lara Favaretto, Sylvie Fleury, Tom Friedman, Rodney Graham, Jeppe Hein, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Ann Veronica Janssens, Ann Lislegaard, Matt Mullican, Takashi Murakami, Paul Noble, Roxy Paine, Charles Ray, Erwin Redl, Pipilotti Rist, Paul Sietsema, Fred Tomaselli, and Klaus Weber.
Ecstasy explores two distinct areas of perceptional experimentation. The first, more representational vein of the exhibition includes works which either represent or incorporate actual pharmaceutical and organic drugs or works representing altered states that the artists themselves have undergone, while the second area consists of works that are designed to simulate or evoke an altered experience for the viewer. Some of the artists in the exhibition have produced bodies of work that fall into both representational and experiential categories. For example, in Charles Ray's self portrait, Yes (1990), the artist presents a life-size photograph of himself under the influence of LSD in a convex frame, mounted on a convex wall of exactly the same angle. The work appears to be perpendicular to the floor at first glance, but one quickly perceives the alteration of space.
The representational thread often addresses the relationship between creativity and altered states induced by mind-altering drugs. In Narcoturismo (1996), Francis Alÿs traces the experience of walking through various neighborhoods in Copenhagen, under the influence of a different narcotic substance each day on his visit, through an 8x10 inch framed typed text piece that matter-of-factly lists each of the drugs taken. In Rodney Graham's 26-minute video, Halcion Sleep (1994), he documents his sleepy ride in the back of a van through the rainy streets of Vancouver after consuming the drug Halcion.
Examples of artists who represent or incorporate actual pharmaceutical and organic drugs in their works include Tom Friedman, whose Untitled (1995) is a gelatine pill capsule filled with tiny spheres of multi-colored Play-Doh. Fred Tomaselli's new large-scale mosaic-like object, Organism (2005), incorporates leaves of organic substances and other materials covered in layers of glossy clear resin. By locking the inanimate forms together, Tomaselli mimics processes of embalming fossilization. Roxy Paine's Psilocybe Cubensis Field (1997) is a simulation of 2,200 "magic" mushrooms installed as if they are growing out of the gallery floor. Super Nova (1999), by Takashi Murakami, features images of mushrooms in kaleidoscopic colors on a frieze-like surface, suggesting a psychedelic version of reality.
The experiential thread is frequently manifested in interactive installations and built environments in which artists use disjunctions in scale or the disruption of spatial orientation to affect a change for the viewer. Stockholm-based Carsten Höller's Upside Down Mushroom Room (2000) features several three-meter high sculptures of psychotropic mushrooms inverted and suspended from the ceiling. Spinning at various speeds and reaching down to eye level, the giant mushrooms seem to have spouted from above, further heightening the hallucinatory experience. In Ann Veronica Janssens's projection installation, Donut (2003), the viewer is subjected to regular intervals of flashing color that fills a darkened room with a series of concentric circles of soothing blues and greens, creating a vertiginous spell. The work addresses loss of control and the absence of fixed materiality through a sensory experience that tests one's cognitive reflexes. Danish artist Jeppe Hein elicits disorientation through the subtle alteration of the gallery space in Invisible Moving Wall (2002). Gliding at an almost imperceptible pace, a gallery wall slowly begins to close in, generating a sense of confusion and uneasiness. Olafur Eliasson's Your strange certainty still kept (1996) is an environmental installation using large droplets of water and strobe lights to create a photographic effect that disassociates the visitor from her/his physical surroundings. Specially made for the exhibition, Tatsurou Bashi's Kariforunia (2005) changes the way visitors perceive the edifices they encounter everyday. The work consists of a constructed living room, supported by a scaffolding structure, situated 30 feet above the ground around the Los Angeles City Hall flagpole bearing the California state flag. Visitors can access the room by climbing a secured staircase where they will see the flag, which previously waved high above the heads of busy pedestrians in downtown Los Angeles, re-positioned at eye level.
Other artists such as Chiho Aoshima, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, and Pipilotti Rist simulate dream-like hypnotic states using audio and large film projections. Aoshima's City Glow (2005) is a large-scale, multi-screen, digital animation portraying a fantastical futuristic city of skyscrapers transformed into demure, worm-like creatures with human faces. Cardiff and Miller's The Muriel Lake Incident (1999) is a 4x4 foot diorama of a miniature movie theater with a video projection and sound elements recorded in a full-size theater heard through headphones. The aural expansiveness of the recording contrasts with the diminutive scale of the moving image, creating a sense of hyper-reality. Rist's installation of two video projections on transparent curtains, Related Legs (2001), presents a psychedelic environment of images, layered upon one another, that mix dream sequences with reality.
The exhibition also features artists relatively new to Los Angeles audiences, including Lara Favaretto, Ann Lislegaard, and Klaus Weber. Favaretto's Confetti Canyon (2005) is a performance that will take place on the exhibition’s opening night in which paper confetti is shot from two cannons over the heads of museum-goers. Lislegaard's installation I-You-Later-There (2000) consists of a leaning vertical platform onto which flashes of blinding light are projected while in an audio component, a female voice describes her experiences of domestic life. Experienced in a darkened gallery, the work disorients the viewer's perception of physical reality, while imbuing it with new psychological and social significance. In Weber's LSD Fountain (2003), diluted LSD trickles through the spouts of a three-tiered Victorian crystal fountain.
"In today’s culture, where we are constantly bombarded with sensory stimuli, Ecstasy explores the boundaries in which the virtual and real become blurred through our experiences," said MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel. "The works in this exhibition participate in this cultural movement and function as a conduit between the mind of the artist and that of the viewer through the emergence of new perspectives on our increasingly complex reality."
Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a 248-page, fully illustrated catalogue co-published with MIT Press. Five newly commissioned essays by invited essayists Carolyn Christov-Barkargiev, Diedrich Diederichsen, Chrissie Iles, Lars Bang Larsen, and Midori Matsui consider topics, such as the relationship between ecstasy and the sublime, the "dark side" of altered consciousness, ecstasy and visuality, and the literary process of self-observation under the influence of drugs. The latter essay introduces writings by Walter Benjamin, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Jünger, Henri Michaux, and one anonymous contemporary author. The publication also features an historical introduction by exhibition curator Paul Schimmel, individual artist entries, and a checklist of works in the exhibition. The catalogue is available in the MOCA Store for $39.95.
Public Programs
MOCA Art Talks Presented by Gallery C
MOCA Art Talks Presented by Gallery C are informal discussions on current exhibitions led by arts professionals. The talks take place in the exhibition galleries unless otherwise noted. Attendance is free with museum admission and no reservations are required. The MOCA Art Talks Presented by Gallery C series is made possible by The Times Mirror Foundation Endowment and Gallery C.
Paul Noble, artist
Sunday, October 9, 3pm, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
Paul Schmmel, exhibition curator
Thursday, January 19, 6:30pm, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
Class
Introducing Ecstasy
Saturday, November 5, 10am–12:30pm
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
Held in conjunction with Ecstasy: In and About Altered States, this half-day course leads participants through a gallery tour and group discussions of the exhibition themes. Featuring internationally recognized as well as up-and-coming artists, the exhibition functions as an intersection in which structures of human consciousness meet a wide spectrum of artistic practices including installation, painting, sculpture, video, photography, and new media. Instructed by Gloria Sutton, Ph.D. candidate, art history, UCLA; and MOCA Project Coordinator. Course number 855.29. $95 general (reg #R5379B); $85 MOCA members (reg #R5640B). For more information, call 310/825-9971 or go to uclaextension.org.
Conference
Ecstasy & Experience: Lessons from Sacred and Illusory Journeys
Presented by MOCA and the New Center for Psychoanalysis (formerly LAPSI and SCPSI)
Saturday, October 29, 9am–5pm
MOCA Grand Avenue, Ahmanson Auditorium
A prestigious panel examines contemporary psychoanalytic thinking about ecstatic states at this forum for the professional psychoanalytic community and MOCA visitors. Speakers will discuss the exhibition Ecstasy: In and Out of Altered States in the context of ongoing research into psychoactive state-altering drugs such as MDMA (Ecstasy) and psilocybin and non-drug induced altered states. Speakers include: Charles Grob, M.D., UCLA; Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.; moderator Thomas Brod, M.D., UCLA. Advance registration required. $30 general; $25 MOCA members. For more information, call 213/621-1745 or e-mail education@moca.org.
Funding
Ecstasy: In and About Altered States is made possible by the generous support of Lillian and Jon Lovelace; Audrey M. Irmas; Jennifer and Manfred Simchowitz; Catharine and Jeffrey Soros; Altria Group, Inc.; Gilbert B. Friesen; Beth Swofford; David Teiger; Wells Fargo; The MOCA Contemporaries; The Danish Arts Agency, The Visual Arts Centre; Mandy and Clifford J. Einstein; The Japan Foundation; and Cultural Services of the French Embassy. In-kind support is provided by Yellow Book USA, and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles. 89.9 KCRW is the Official Media Sponsor of MOCA. The Millennium Biltmore is MOCA’s Official Hotel.
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