I’m contributing a new work to Exercises in Seeing, a one-night exhibition in the dark that opens at Queens Nails Projects on Saturday at 9pm.

Two-Way Window is a sculpture masquerading as a two-dimensional artwork.

It consists of a sheet of black paper mounted on cream matboard in a black frame. The frame glass has been replaced with a two-way acrylic mirror. The acrylic is reflective but transparent. How and what it reflects and reveals suggests multiple perceptual experiences and interpretations.

The matboard is visible, while the visibility of the black paper depends on lighting conditions. Well-lit, the shadow of the black paper can be seen; a work of art is implied, yet hidden from view. In near-darkness however, as in Exercises in Seeing, the black paper is undetectable. With no visual cues to the shape or texture of that central space, it disappears and suggests an unlit void behind the gallery wall. In that darkened rectangle—the implied work of art—the image of the viewer can be seen most clearly.

This is connected with ongoing motifs in my work, like an interest in the artwork’s binary identity as both “container” and “contained,” and the notion that the viewer’s role in imparting meanings onto artworks is often underestimated.

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Post Brothers present
Exercises in Seeing
a one night only exhibition held entirely in the dark
Sat., Dec. 5, 2009, 9pm–6am
Queen’s Nails Projects, 3191 Mission St., San Francisco
Free and open to the public

A free audio guide by David Buuck will be available as a limited edition
CD and downloadable audio file at queensnailsprojects.com.

Featuring projects by: Jesse Ash (UK), Olivier Babin (FR), Nina Beier (DK), Francesca Bennett & Nicholas Matranga (CA/NL), Raymond Boisjoly & Ryan Peter (CA), Liudvikas Buklys (LT), Deric Carner (US), Etienne Chambaud (FR), Brian Clifton (US), Torreya Cummings (US), Dina Danish (EG/NL), Gintaras Didžiapetris (LT), Rosie Farrell (UK), Isola & Norzi (IT), Seth Lower (US), Benoit Maire (FR), Darius Mikšys (LT), Tegan Moore (CA), Elena Narbutaite (LT), Daniel Oates Kuhn (US/CA), Kamau Amu Patton (US), Mandla Reuter (DE), Snowden Snowden (US), Gareth Spor (US), David Stein (US), Daniel Turner (US), Freek Wambacq (NL), Jen Weih (CA), Christine Wong Yap (US).