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Deception</title></head><body>
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<div><i><b>Vertigo. Op Art and a History of Deception
1520-1970</b></i><br>
May 25-October 26, 2019<br>
<br>
<b>Opening:</b> May 24, 7pm<br>
<br>
<b>mumok - Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien</b><br>
Museumsplatz 1<br>
1070 Vienna<br>
Austria<br>
<br>
<a
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></span>www.mumok.at</a></div>
<div><a
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"https://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=116335&N=26012&L=25589&F=H"><br>
</a></div>
<div>Of all the groundbreaking art movements of the 1950s and 60s, Op
Art has received the least amount of attention to date. It has often
been discounted as too spectacular and showy and therefore not very
profound. But this attitude fails to recognize Op Art's unique
ability to raise our awareness for the ambivalence of reality as it
tangibly demonstrates that perception is far from objective but rather
quite easy to destabilize and deceive. It shows us that how we see
things always depends on our point of view.<br>
</div>
<div>The exhibition<i> Vertigo. Op Art and a History of Deception
1520-1970</i> unfurls a whole panorama of artistic works that
confound the senses, ranging from panel paintings, reliefs, and
(kinetic) objects to installations and experiential spaces, to film
and computer-generated or computer-controlled art.<br>
</div>
<div>The title of the exhibition was taken from Alfred Hitchcock's
famous 1958 film. In the show, as in the film, the term vertigo is
ambiguous, meaning both a physical phenomenon and a sensory and
cognitive deception. The main character in the movie suffers from a
fear of heights that makes him dizzy, rendering him vulnerable to
deception not only of the senses. The "Vertigo effect"
achieved with the camera work went down in cinematic history, used in
a key scene set on a spiral staircase leading up to a tower to
irresistibly draw the viewer's gaze downwards in a dizzying spiral
into the abyss. This sequence manages to keenly convey to the viewer
the physical reaction felt by the character. Likewise legendary are
the film's opening credits, featuring a long shot of an eye in which
a spiral begins to spin, gradually seguing into an abstract play of
seemingly infinite spiral movements. This was the work of the designer
Saul Bass and the animation artist James Whitney, the latter a pioneer
of abstract film and animation techniques who is also represented in
the exhibition.<br>
</div>
<div>Op Art pieces are by no means directed solely at the sense of
sight but instead impart experiences that affect the entire body. It
is no coincidence that Bridget Riley chooses titles for her pictures
such as<i> Blaze, Static, Cataract, Hesitate,</i> and<i> Climax,</i>
terms for extreme physical reactions or states. Tony Conrad for his
part subjected the viewers of his flicker film to the risk of
epileptic seizures. In order to bring about the intended effects, Op
Art and its associated kinetic art forms in addition demand that the
viewer be in motion in front of or in relation to the work.<br>
</div>
<div>Theoretical underpinnings for this approach can be found for
example in Umberto Eco's book<i> Opera Aperta</i> (1962), in which
the author recognizes viewers as active participants in the
constitution of the artworks-indeed, even as a necessary condition
for their completeness. Based on this concept, Eco as a thinker and Op
Art as an artistic movement became early protagonists in the
participatory art of the second half of the twentieth century and
postmodern thought in general. Umberto Eco notably also became an
early Op Art theorist with his text<i> Arte programmata</i>, likewise
published in 1962.<br>
</div>
<div>In formal terms, Op Art works, which for the most part make use
of a geometric vocabulary, are part of the 20th-century tradition of
abstract concrete art, which also includes the Minimal Art that came
onto the scene in the 1960s (and thus at a late date). Op Art is
distinguished from these other forms, however, in its pronounced
departure from the comfort zone of harmonious moderation in favor of
dramatic effects, distortions, and other forms of sensory
overload.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Op Art is thus committed to the principle of the anti-classical,
which is why the exhibition's curators view it as the mannerist
iteration of concrete art. With this frame of reference in mind, the
show includes carefully selected examples of anti-classical art from
the 16th to the 18th centuries, as well as forerunners to Op Art from
the first half of the twentieth century. These works illustrate how an
engagement with vibrating patterns, pulsating and fleeting
afterimages, paradoxical spatial illusions, anamorphoses, moiré and
shifting effects, as well as other methods of optical illusion and
physical influences, can already be found in earlier eras as
counterpoints to more "classical" artistic approaches.<br>
</div>
<div>The exhibition display in the form of a labyrinth, a topos
repeatedly deployed in Mannerism but also in Op Art, picks up on the
play of illusions and the bewilderment of senses found in the
artworks.<br>
<br>
Already before stepping into the exhibition, in the exterior, visitors
are familiarized with this art form. The French-Venezuelan artist
Carlos Cruz-Diez, represented in<i> Vertigo</i> with a work from the
1960s, created a "promenade cromatique" for the stairway
from the MQ courtyard to the mumok entrance. The floor work offers a
first notion of a game of perception, before the visitors enter the
exhibiton spaces themselves.<br>
</div>
<div>This exhibition was initiated by mumok and is implemented in
cooperation with Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, where it will be shown in late
2019.<i> Vertigo. Op Art and a History of Deception 1520-1970</i> is
generously supported by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne<br>
</div>
<div><b>Artists:</b> Marc Adrian, Josef Albers, Giovanni Anceschi,
Richard Anuszkiewicz, Marina Apollonio, Alberto Biasi, Hartmut Böhm,
Martha Boto, Gianni Colombo, Tony Conrad, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Dadamaino,
Gabriele De Vecchi, Lucia di Luciano, Jean Du Breuil, Marcel Duchamp,
Roland K. Fuchshuber, Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena, Heinrich Göding,
Gerhard von Graevenitz, Franco Grignani, Matthias Grünewald, Brion
Gysin, Athanasius Kircher, Erika Giovanna Klien, Edoardo Landi, Julio
Le Parc, Adolf Luther, Enzo Mari, Almir Mavignier, Francesco Mazzola
gen. Parmigianino, Claude Mellan, Richard S. Meryman, Desiderio
Monsù, François Morellet, Gotthart Joe Müller, Georg Nees, Jean
François Niceron, Lev Nussberg, Ivan Picelj, Helga Philipp, Giovanni
Battista Piranesi, Karl Reinhartz, Circle of Guido Reni, Vjenceslav
Richter, Bridget Riley, Dieter Roth, Nicolas Schöffer, Erhard
Schön, Vyacheslav Shcherbakov, Lorenz Stör, Jesús Raphael Soto,
Aleksandar Srnec, Kerry Strand, Paul Talman, Abbott Handerson Thayer,
Hans Tröschel, Gracia Varisco, Victor Vasarely, After Johann
Christian Vollaert, Hans Vredeman de Vries, Edward Wadsworth, James
Whitney, Ludwig Wilding<br>
</div>
<div><b>Curated by</b> Eva Badura-Triska and Markus Wörgötter<br>
</div>
<div><b>Exhibibition catalogue:</b> Vertigo. Op Art and a History of
Deception 1520-1970<br>
ed. by Eva Badura-Triska and Markus Wörgötter, Preface: Karola
Kraus and Ulrike Groos, Essays by: Eva Badura-Triska, Eva-Marina
Froitzheim, Sergius Kodera, Charissa N. Terranova, Markus
Wörgötter, 208 pages<br>
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln 2019<br>
ISBN: 978-3-902947-67-3 (English version)<br>
</div>
<div><b>Contact</b><br>
Please check our website for regular updates on our program.<br>
For further information please contact: Katharina Murschetz</div>
<div>T +43 (0) 1 52500 1400 / <a
href="mailto:press@mumok.at">press@mumok.at</a></div>
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