If Las Vegas is a city of chance, what are the
odds of the seminal painting TV Bulge (1969), by John Torreano, landing at the
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at UNLV?
The last time this large-scale work was on view was the Whitney Annual
Exhibition of American Contemporary Art in 1969. Join the Marjorie Barrick
Museum of Art for our new exhibition, Stars on the Ground: Works by John
Torreano, curated by Melisa Christ. John Torreano is an internationally
recognized artist whose work has continuously evolved over his fifty-plus year
career. He has exhibited work in thirty
solo exhibitions and over a hundred group exhibitions at institutions around
the world.
Alongside TV Bulge, a second large painting
from the series will be on display, as well as a few select sketches relating
to these works and the artists process.
Las Vegans already know Torreano from his public sculpture Ghost Gem
Garden, installed at McCarran International Airport in 1992.
Torreano’s work has been described by fellow
artist, Richard Artschwager, “as paintings that stand still and make YOU
move.” Throughout his career, Torreano
has incorporated a variety of mediums, yet has remained consistent in creating
work that incorporates “viewer location as content”, referring to this idea as
“movement-oriented perception”. In the
TV Bulge painting, the figure dots are placed strategically on the ground to
create the illusion of spatial depth, winking in and out of view as the viewer
moves. The focus shifts between the dots and the painterly space behind them,
causing the figures and ground to trade places.
Similarly, as a viewer passes the Ghost Gem Garden, the prismatic forms
sparkle and change as light reflects off their glass panes, with the focus
shifting between their shimmering transparency and the materiality of their
forms.