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.