Electricity and Me: Magnets and Unseen Forces
This annual exhibit at Gallery Lombardi deals with the interface between humans and the forces that govern the natural world. Our increasing understanding of science is having a profound impact both on our daily lives and on our future. This is a topic of considerable interest to contemporary artists, just as it has been to artists and writers throughout recorded history, and Lombardi has strong works on the theme in this year’s survey. Here are just a few:
Object Relationships by Dan DeZarn is an installation work in which magnetized nails are randomly nailed into a wall in the gallery. Iron filings are attached to the nails, so that the artwork itself is formed by the forces of magnetism. The lines of force are clearly revealed by the bundle of filings sticking to each nail.
Brian Bowers’ Frankenstein photographs are interestingly composed double exposures, richly colored in contrasting tones of orange and blue. The Frankenstein story is, of course, one of an earlier generation’s literary explorations of the implications of technology.
Sean Perry’s Pulse is a powerful large-scale photograph featuring the business end of a wired tower of some sort. The image discloses the expressive, totemic beauty of an object of extremely complex and utterly pragmatic function, mysterious to the uninitiate.
Jerry Chamkis’ Kosmophone is a fascinating sound installation. A gamma-ray spectrometer is joined to a music synthesizer, providing the opportunity to experience the cosmic rays that are all around us, but that cannot be perceived by our unaided senses. A display of electrical antiquities further probes the boundaries between art and technology.
Through Oct. 30. 910 W. Third, 481-1088.
This article appears in Iraqi Day of the Dead.