Ann Veronica Janssens “Blue, Red and Yellow” 2001_ Courtesy of the artist and 1301PE, Los Angeles, Photo by Kevin TodoraAnn Veronica Janssens
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [link]
January 23, 2016 – April 17, 2016
[published by EUTOPIA: Contemporary Art Review]
Experiential works, such as Janssens’ fog room or layered cubes, require little or no explanatory text to engage. The optical spectacle triggers a digital image impulse: documentary investigatory tourism is the mass socio-cultural statement. However beautiful, stunning and wordless the work, sustained consideration reveals a Kantian knot of perceptual inquiry. Made of relatively humble materials the work exemplifies a proletariat modernism –“it is what it is”— while simultaneously mystifying the common through sublime transmutation. By questioninghow one perceives a loop of self-reflective inquiry prompts reconsideration of correlative objectivity, forcing re-engagement with the world as potentially unknowable and profoundly mystical.
~ Ryder Richards
photos by Kevin Todora, courtesy of the artist, 1301PE, Los Angeles and Nasher Sculpture Center
