Ecstasy: In and About Altered States features approximately fifty works, including painting, sculpture, video, film, installation, photography, and new media, by thirty leading and emerging contemporary artists, that explore altered states of perception and interactivity by generating heightened audiovisual experiences for viewers. The exhibition highlights two approaches to this overarching theme: artistic representations of “altered states,” and attempts to induce these states through art. The artists, hailing from around the world, explore one or both of these methods in their work, sometimes with actual drugs: Klaus Weber’s Public Fountain LSD Hall (2003), for example, included a running, Victorian glass fountain with water containing potentized LSD-25. Other artists in the show included Franz Ackermann; Chiho Aoshima; Assume Vivid Astro Focus; Glenn Brown; Olafur Eliasson; Sylvie Fleury; Tom Friedman; Rodney Graham; Pierre Huyghe; Takashi Murakami; Charles Ray; Pipilotti Rist; Fred Tomaselli; and many more.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
Ecstasy is organized by Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.