Thresholds: Limits of Perception
An exhibition of works by artists and scientists.
Arts Biennial 1997
Eighth Floor Gallery, 473 Broadway, 8th Floor, New York City
October 14-25, 1997. Opening 6-8 pm Friday October 17, 1997.
Second Call for Submissions
DEADLINE is September 18. Anyone interested in submitting work for
exhibition should notify us as soon as possible, with a brief description.
"Thresholds: Limits to Perception" will exhibit works by artists
(including Robert Irwin and Ellsworth Kelly) and scientists (including
John Robson and Jonathan Victor). The sun bathes our earth with a broad
spectrum of electromagnetic waves, but we see only the tiny fraction that
we call "light". Perception is limited in many ways. Each limit is a
threshold, separating seen from unseen. Only a few of our limits have
been explored in art or science, but the explorations have revealed much
about the nature of perception. We cannot see contrasts below about 1%.
Images that hover at the edge of visibility have a magical purity that is
seen in the faint gratings of Agnes Martin and dots and disks of Robert
Irwin. We encounter another limit as forms get more complex. We can see
the simple shape of a constellation of a few stars, but the complexity of
the entire night sky is beyond us.
When a stimulus is too weak to convince our eye of its presence, we fail
to see it. We can also see things that aren't really there. Paintings of
Ellsworth Kelly and spare yarn sculptures of Fred Sandback mimic some
aspects, but not others, of real scenes and convince our eyes to see
illusory contours and surfaces.
We invite submissions from artists and scientists that explore threshold
and limits to perception, in any dimension.
The exhibition "Thresholds: Limits of Perception" is part of the Arts
Biennial 1997 organized by New York Arts Magazine. The October 17 opening
of the exhibition will coincide with a day-long symposium on "Theories of
Vision" at New York University . Both events are open to the public.
Curators:
Denis Pelli
Professor of Psychology and Neural Science
New York University
(212)-998-8338
denis@psych.nyu.edu
Ana Maria Torres
Architect, Partner
Balmori Associates Inc
(203)-772-4074
ATorres174@aol.com