A snare for the eye

Smart Project Space, Amsterdam

This exhibition focuses on works that explicitly bring the act of looking into play by making visible the ambiguity of looking itself. They play a game with the gaze of the spectator, thereby putting their own mechanisms on the spot, as perception of the trap always involves a moment of self-reflection.

comunicato stampa

Renata Czajor, Diederik Klomberg, Elke Lehman, Nicola Pellegrini, Gert Rietveld, Gert Robijns, Andreas Slominski, Carolien Stikker, Claude Wampler, Thomas Zummer. Curated by Alice Smits

Opening: Saturday 22nd February, 21.00 hrs.

At 21.30 hrs. Technology as Inner Experience, a performance-reading by Thomas Zummer in Smart Cinema. In cafÃ© De Ruimte dj performance with visuals by Name.

The exhibition runs from 23rd February till 30th March, 2003 Visual artworks employ specific perceptual strategies directed to catch the gaze of the beholder. The original latin connotation of the word perception is 'catching', or 'taking captive'. Images are visual constructions that seduce the eye, (mis)leading it to see viewpoints and perspectives that come into effect within their given cultural and historical context.

Duchamp posed against the distanced modernist spectator the implicit look of the regardeur: the regardeur is the observer who activates the artwork in the act of looking. Sincere forms of tricking have always been essential to art long before Duchamp. They are extremely valuable in rendering different views of reality, throwing the eye back onto itself. Especially now we live in a time in which we are daily confronted with an overload of visual information, awareness of how our field of vision is packaged to draw us in has become crucial

This exhibition focuses on works that explicitly bring the act of looking into play by making visible the ambiguity of looking itself. They play a game with the gaze of the spectator, thereby putting their own mechanisms on the spot, as perception of the trap always involves a moment of self-reflection. A Snare for the Eye means the eye is ensnaring the thing that traps it. The question arises then how to behave in the trap. If we get ourselves caught in a trap, we inevitable have to concern ourselves with the conditions of the trap, or simply enjoy being snared...

Video program A Trap for the Looking accompanies the exhibition every Sunday and Wednesday at 17.00 in Smart Cinema, curated by Lee Ellickson.

Immagine: Nicola Pellegrini

SMART Project Space
Exhibition Space & Cinema: 1e Const. Huygensstraat 20
Opening times: Tues-Sat from 12.00-22.00, Sun from 14.00-22.00 hrs.
Mail to: P.O.Box 15004, NL-1001 MA Amsterdam
Phone: +31 20 427.5951
Fax.: +31 20 427.5953

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IN ARCHIVIO [71]

Gabriel Lester
dal 2/11/2012 al 29/12/2012