One and the Same

March 29, 2023

Chicago-based artist Noel Mercado is all about the process. He went to school for art direction and got into graphic design in his early twenties. In college, however, he took a few woodshops classes and that's where his love for making objects with his hands blossomed. He learned how to be resourceful, to think about the history of found objects and how to repurpose them to generate new forms and configurations.

Mercado's turned scrap heaps into sought-after objects. His instagram is full of works that showcase his process, like Bum a Smoke, a vintage metal Marlboro sign that he found, cut in half and placed on two vintage Herman Miller metal stacking bases to create chairs.

It is no surprise that USM Modular Furniture was down for a collaboration when he just so happened to stumble into their showroom on a casual trip to NYC.

Text by Sahir Ahmed
Portrait by Adam Jason
Installation photos by Marco Galloway

After the opening last Friday at the USM NY showroom in SoHo, office had a chance to sit down with Noel to reflect on what it was like collaborating with a furniture house that has been providing timeless modular furniture designs for half a century.

Let’s start at the beginning. How did you come to design and get started with your current practice?

Well, I've always made things; I went to school for art direction and design and got into graphic design in my early twenties. I still do it, but in college, I also had a few woodshop classes and that kind of changed my life. I got to really understand the tools I was working with, and then I ended up working at the woodshop. That's where a lot of my resourcefulness started because I was in college and didn't really have a bunch of money to spend on materials, so I was always digging through the scrap bin of the woodshop. I was always making stuff out of whatever people threw away.

It’s still very similar to what I do now — amateur style. I was always in the woodshop. Once I graduated, I didn’t have the woodshop anymore but knew I wanted to continue what I was doing. I had to scratch that creative itch of physically making stuff, so that's when I started exploring leatherwork. The process is similar — measuring, cutting, etc., but you can do it from your house, and it gets messy but not as messy as a woodshop. So I started really diving into leatherwork with small accessories — wallets and belts, hence the name @noel.walletchain.

How has your process evolved since the start?

Recently, I’ve wanted to tap back into my college days of coming up with crazy ideas and making them happen. Now I have all this knowledge of so many different materials — wood, metal, leather. During quarantine, I really used that time to my advantage. I was like, "I have to make something every single week. At the end of the week, I have to have a finished piece." I would make deadlines for myself and then be upset if I didn't hit them. I was pretty tough on myself about that, even though nobody else knew that the deadline even existed. If I slacked off the next week, I’d double it up. I was just always making stuff.

At some point, I started running out of materials — I go to the thrift store to source most of my materials — so I started hitting every alley within three miles of my house. I would track my movement, and it was just zigzag up and down alleys. It was kind of funny. I found a pretty decent chair, and that's kind of how I started with the chair stuff. That chair definitely set it off. I embroidered a Marlboro Camel chair on the back and the seat. After that, I became addicted to finding chairs, which slowly introduced me to furniture design. Whenever I do anything, if I'm actually interested, I go pretty hard on it.

What's the most important part?

Doing what I do, knowing how to do that, and knowing the history of what I’m working on is super important to me. I quickly became a furniture nerd about everything. I'm taking things apart and thinking about what that designer was thinking about and deconstructing it and seeing how this thing was fabricated or assembled. I learn a lot from deconstructing.

I’m also thinking about the other chair you did, “Choice of Champions.” You take something that had a particular function and give it a completely new one.

Yeah, that was a punching bag I found in my alley, actually right down the street... I was walking my dog and was like, "Whoa, perfect." It was after it rained too, so the punching bag weighed like 200 lbs, so I was in the alley with this dirty, wet punching bag, throwing all the stuff from the inside into the dumpster. I was like, "Dude, this sucks." But I was like, "The fabric is perfect." I like mixing the two worlds of high-end, super-expensive design and adding an element of grit and manual labor. Everything that I use is an everyday kind of object. I'm fascinated with production lines, especially the people who are assembling as their full-time job and don't think twice about it.

For USM, when I went to the warehouse, it was really cool to see where it all happens. They don't fabricate there, but they assemble everything there. It’s where everything in the US gets shipped out from. I'm very process driven, so I kind of geek out when I get to see the behind-the-scenes, you know?

What was it like working with a company as well-known as USM, considering that your practice has mostly been a solo act thus far?

USM was really awesome to work with. Everyone was asking me how they approached me. I was like, "Honestly, I just walked into the store." I'm from Chicago, so when I was in NYC, I asked my friend whether there was a USM store nearby and it was right there. I went in, started talking with them, and making art came up, and had a thought that I could work with them if I played my cards right. I showed them the RIMOWA piece that I did with MOBA for Art Basel a couple of years ago and then the seatbelt chair, and I was like, "I would really love to work with you guys one day. That'd be sick." Little did I know that the NYC showroom runs the whole country.

It kind of just jumped off from there, which was surreal because USM isn't cheap. It was crazy engraving on USM panels. Getting materials from the actual source has always been a dream. I got that with RIMOWA, which was great. It's the same feeling of, "Wow, this is completely unfabricated, raw materials that I get to do whatever I want with it." But with USM, it's crazy because it's modular furniture, so the options are limitless. There's no end to what you could do with it. It was like working with a blank page. I worked very closely on the team strategizing not only on design but on what sells the best. I learned a lot about sales strategizing, which I’ll definitely use in future projects, because a lot of it is retail, not just for the artwork. People are considering whether they want to buy this and keep it forever potentially.

I was working on this project for close to a year. I worked on all the leatherwork throughout. They even gave me a perforated trash can, saying "You could probably do something cool with this. Here you go."

I was going to ask about that one.

I decided to weave it with leather, which took me three days to do. My hands were really raw. They were dry and bleeding by the end, but it came out cool.

You made everything by hand, right?

Yeah, except for the bigger furniture, like the credenza. I just designed those and came up with the colorways. The vests, the trashcan, the magazine holder, all of those were tied into this idea of repurposing products that they either just had in the showroom or don't sell that much.

There are 16 vests, and I handmade all of those. That was an experience, making all those vests and how limited they were. And sourcing the fabric. I'm picky as hell with everything I use, so it had to be exactly what I envisioned. Conceptually, the whole wearable tie-in was that in fashion houses, they wear white lab coats, so I made these vests like, "This is what they would wear if USM was a wearable fashion brand." That was the idea, and then matching the vests to the units I designed.

What was it like coming up with the colorways for all the pieces, especially those that will be used as furniture?

Again, I worked really closely with the team. I'm always thinking of the people, what would people actually want in their house, and even what is something I would personally have in my house. I couldn’t pick a color so I picked five colors. I thought about what it's like seeing a car with a different colored door and knowing that person found that door in the junkyard.

I also wanted it to be subtle, having muted areas with pops of color. Having one drawer be yellow and then the rest tan and white. A huge yellow credenza would dominate a space and delegate the rest of the layout, that’s not what I’m trying to do. Visually, if you can reach a good balance, then you're good; you are in a safe zone. That unit you bought is different enough, but it doesn’t clash, it just pops.

Could you tell me a bit about the centerpiece I Can See My House From Here? How did that come about?

That was one of my original ideas when we first started rendering. Again I had to unlearn this idea of frugality working with USM. Usually, when I make art, everything is coming out of my pocket, so I’m always trying to be as economical as possible. USM just let me go wild. Originally, I Can See My House From Here was going to be triple the size. I wanted it to be a call back to Chicago because I live there. After conceptualizing this wearable aspect, I steered clear of going so big but still wanted people to know I was from Chicago. Mimicking the Sears Tower silhouette can very easily be corny and tacky. If you do it right, like when Virgil did his crazy skyline vest, that was sick. That was a big inspiration. I was like, "All right, Virgil did it maximalist. That was dope, and it looked cool as shit." I was like, "All right. How can I do it? Have the same effect, but—

Minimalist.

Yeah, exactly. That was a fun piece to make. I didn't know if it was going to happen because they've never built a piece like that in terms of the lighting, but we tried it, did some test runs, and it worked perfectly. I was like, "Sick, dude. This thing is fucking awesome. It's going to look so cool." The name came from what it’s like to be in the Sears Tower high up, mapping out where you are — where your house is, and where your friends live. You know what I mean? And then double entendre, I guess, of having this Chicago-inspired piece in New York as a piece of home. I'm like, "Oh, I'm in New York. I can see my house from here. I'm leaving a piece that's Chicago-inspired in New York, a city I love and visit all the time."

<em>I Can See My House From Here</em> — *I Can See My House From Here*

There are also those furniture pieces with the potted panel. How did those come about?

So USM has that as an option. It’s a custom USM pot made to fit into that panel. I kind of unintentionally always incorporate plants in my work if I can. This idea of my work actually living. I made a bootleg Louis Vuitton vase once, and I was like, "This is cool in terms of function, what it's made out of, and that it's something that has a life of its own because it's a vase.” You're always buying new flowers for that specific vase. Again, the life aspect of it is really interesting to me. That piece is called Take Off Your Shoes and Water Your Plant.

My idea was to have it as the entryway bench where you sit down and take your shoes off or put them on, whatever, because you do that most days, and it would prompt you to water your plant because it's right there. That was a fun piece to be able to incorporate something that I've already been adding in pretty organically, so it was dope. That's my favorite one.

<em>Take Off Your Shoes and Water Your Plant</em> — *Take Off Your Shoes and Water Your Plant*

What was it like working with both mobile and stationary bases?

A few of the pieces in the show were inspired by some vintage designs that I personally use. The wheeled shelving cart that I did was based on a trolley by Joe Colombo that I have at my studio. The one I made is called When I Move, You Move because I literally drag the trolley I have at my studio around when I'm painting on a canvas or have my tools on it. It’s behind me the whole time. I wanted it to be extremely functional, with this idea of mobility and maximizing its functionality and using it as a tool more than anything. Almost like it’s alive and working with you.

<em>When I Move, You Move</em> — *When I Move, You Move*

What was the opening like last night?

I mean, it was a lot of work, but it was great. I got in on Wednesday morning, came straight to USM, and didn't leave till 9:30 p.m. I was here from 12:00 to 9:30 p.m. I was in the basement where I'm right now and still sewing the vests at 9:30 at night, the day before the show. It wasn't stressful because I knew I was going to get it done, but I had to make some alterations to all of them. It was definitely down to the wire in the best way possible where I was like, "All right, cool. We're going to get everything done right on time."

The opening was fantastic. I got to meet many Instagram friends and people I'm a fan of — designers, creatives, and people I didn't know followed my work. It was cool interacting with everyone, meeting people, and just seeing people interact with what I made. I spend so much time with what I make that I get so used to it. When people are like, "Oh, you hand engraved this?" I'm like, "Yeah." A lot of people think I have things made, especially with garments. I'm like, "No, I made everything, literally everything. I was very close to everything that everyone saw. The turnout was fantastic. I was really, really grateful all the way around, just the opportunity, the city, not being from New York, and having the crowd that came out, it was awesome.

Do you have any projects coming up this year that you can tell us about?

I have some stuff happening back home but nothing that's as work-intensive as this. I'm going to be doing some collabs with some friends on garment pieces. A friend of mine in Chicago runs this thing called Print Object. Her name's Anna. She's giving me this opportunity to make whatever I want, pretty much, and then have it available to sell online, which I usually don't do. Not intentionally; I just have to figure out how to make a web store, really. I'm excited I've also always wanted to do this conceptual sculptural base type thing. It's just some one-off things, but yeah, nothing too crazy. I'm probably going to take the month off.

Yeah, I mean, after this, you should.

Yeah, I definitely need to chill out for a second.

Art

Oscar yi Hou Sets Reality Center Stage

October 30, 2024

New York painter Oscar yi Hou enjoyed the kind of early success that makes cynics salivate. Downtown art dealer James Fuentes scooped the British-born wunderkind up when he was still studying at Columbia University. Yi Hou had his first solo show with Fuentes in 2021 — the same year he graduated — shortly after debuting in group shows with Rachel Uffner in New York and Michael Kohn in LA. He won the UOVO Prize for emerging Brooklyn talents in 2022, and became one of the youngest artists to stage an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 2023.

After stepping back from the initial buzz that swarmed his symbol-laden, colorful portraits (mostly immortalizing his cosmopolitan, creative friends), yi Hou returns to the limelight — this time, wiser and freer, yet more refined in his approach. His latest show, The beat of life, just opened at James Fuentes, and remains up through November 17. The exhibition follows yi Hou’s concept-driven museum show with ten slightly pared back, far more naturalistic paintings.

By Vittoria Benzine
Cover, Self-portrait (25), aka: The beat of life, 2024.
Photos by Shark Senesac, courtesy of the artist and James Fuentes New York & Los Angeles

“My first show with James, I’d just graduated college and I was really interested in academia and theory,” yi Hou told me over Zoom. He was preparing to unveil The beat of life, and I was at my boyfriend’s mother’s home in Yuma, on a month-long road trip interviewing strangers before the election. It’s been a whirlwind much like yi Hou’s experience of 2021 and 2022, cranking out art.

“[Academia and theory] heavily informed my practice,” yi Hou told me. “They still do now. But, this was prior to having lived life as an independent adult. As the years passed since graduation, a lot of the theory that I was reading started to be less applicable and less relevant.” Days later, my colleague Dorian Batycka posted an IG story of a classical sculpture from Art Basel Paris with a similar idea: “The fact that no one can (or wants to) make this anymore points to a wider problem: that art has become so obsessed with concept/theory (and money) over basic form.”

Thus, yi Hou is now drawing from daily existence — from “nightlife and putting myself out there,” he said. “Having sex — at least for gay men or queer men, that is a great way to make friends.” The title of his new show once again draws from a poem he wrote. It evokes police violence and music alike by referencing the thrum of a heart in a chest.

I can actually refuse any kind of closed meaning or thesis in whatever I make.

Birds of a Feather aka: Chinatown Gangsters, 2024.

The show itself simulates that sensation. For the first time, yi Hou presents several scales across The beat of life, which oscillates like a pulse between small, close-cropped busts of compatriots like yi Hou’s boyfriend, and larger arrangements like Birds of a Feather aka: Chinatown Gangsters (2024), which depicts yi Hou alongside artists Amanda Ba and Sasha Gordon. (Perhaps he’s angling for a Deitch show, too.) Across sizes, yi Hou amalgamates oils with gouache, graphite, and more. Yet, these works bear new marks of maturity, like the honesty of discerning one’s strengths and the power of saying less, a confident refusal to explain further.

Orange and magenta still flash throughout yi Hou’s linework, but rather than sculpting figures from many maximalist flat blocks of color, yi Hou has spent time tenderly rendering flesh and fabric true to life. Supple cheeks exposed via rich assless chaps greet guests entering The beat of life from Coolieisms, aka: Born in the USA (Go and Kill the Yellow Man) (2023-24) — a painting named after Bruce Springsteen’s famous hit. Obama used the song to counter birther conspiracies, while Trump plays the pithy American critique patriotically at his rallies.

Coolieisms, aka: Born in the USA (Go and Kill the Yellow Man), 2023-2024.

This initial artwork hails from yi Hou’s ongoing Coolieisms series, which reclaims a 19th-century slur for exploited Chinese rail laborers by depicting Asian figures in the trappings of Americana.

“Was there a leather daddy back in the 1800s working in the mines?” yi Hou mused. “Probably not.” In Coolieisms, though, he uses his own visage and imagined characters to forge fictions that highlight stereotypes about Asianness, masculinity, heteronormative culture, and more.

Yi Hou has previously spoken about the paradox of representation, that newfound art world fixation. Representation isn’t necessarily action, but it’s necessary for an equitable society. “It can be a burden to think about these things, but it's also quite generative,” yi Hou added. Symbols carry historical meanings, while also offering canvases for each viewer’s projections. They’re ephemeral, but spark material impacts. There’s a chilling reality, after all, to rooms full of people singing “Go and kill the yellow man,” regardless of which politician might be playing it.

The Coolieisms series was once the one place yi Hou exercised license. “I was interested in the ethics of portraiture and trying to not commit any symbolic violence to another person through a painting,” he recalled. “As I got older, I was like, ‘wait, none of my sitters give a shit about that.’”

Symbols offered a sort of camouflage that enhanced while encrypting meaning. They’re active here, too. Yi Hou’s use of the color wheel proves somewhat new, but he’s harnessed sheriff’s stars and yin-yang signs before. “I've been interested in opacity and obscurity, generating mystery or opacity through these symbols,” he said of his compositions. “Because I've talked so much about them, they're a bit transparent now.” In another interview, yi Hou noted that sometimes indirect communications convey more. Thus, he’s set such icons ablaze in works like Self-portrait (25), aka: The beat of life (2024), “to further obfuscate the meaning behind them.”

Sailor Moon Rising aka: Pacific Passenger, 2023.

Even the show’s environmental elements carry palimpsest connotations. Cranes soar throughout that same self-portrait — in China, they symbolize longevity and luck, but these birds feature prominently, too, in the murals across Alamosa, CO, where the birds pause for a month or so each fall during their annual migration. Maybe the Navy man seated beside the sunflowers in Sailor Moon Rising aka: Pacific Passenger (2023) just likes those flowers, or perhaps he’s optimistic, as they’d allude. Or, maybe he’s from Kansas, where they adorn state highway signs.

Yi Hou’s affinity for the Beat poets first attracted him to America. He has yet to travel the country himself, though. Maybe he’s better off. We’ve met many people out here who espouse their open-mindedness without demonstrating it. One man in Iowa told me about his gay friends, but called protestors “thugs.” Americans appear inept at estimating themselves, but art actually does expand horizons. Another man in Idaho said that while discussing “On The Road” with a friend, he was shocked to learn there’s gay sex involved. “I’ll be damned,” he said upon a return read.

<em>Castro Comrade, aka: fourbird</em>, 2024. — *Castro Comrade, aka: fourbird*, 2024.

<em>The perfect initiate, aka: At the afters</em>, 2024 — *The perfect initiate, aka: At the afters*, 2024

<em>Habibi, aka: If you surrendered to air, you could ride it</em>, 2024. — *Habibi, aka: If you surrendered to air, you could ride it*, 2024.

Exposure is the answer to the biases still dogging America. Maybe representation isn’t the final solution, but it’s a good start — one that yi Hou is evidently mastering. “I can actually refuse any kind of closed meaning or thesis in whatever I make,” he said. “That's what I was doing with this body of work — the work inherently has a kind of politics and thinking behind it, but I feel it was less didactic and a lot more free.” Seeing alone has its power. The beat of life is an exercise in it.

The beat of life is on view at James Fuentes until November 16, 2024.

Art

Doug Wheeler's Day Night Day

October 08, 2024

“When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars

“It is the closest thing to heaven you will ever get.” — Thor Shannon, conversation

On Thursday, September 12th, a half-block-spanning line led to David Zwirner’s 20th Street location, officially marking the fall return of gallery openings. Black-clad patrons and flamboyant need-to-be-seens buzzed outside. It was a challenging spring and summer for the Art Market, and Chelsea seems eager for refreshed momentum. The Art Market has been experiencing, in the words of a Christie’s exec, “a challenging macroeconomic environment” for some time now. But the malaise of vibecession hasn’t slowed the ambitious programs of the mega-galleries. As such, David Zwirner started the year with a bang, staging a truly revelatory light installation, DN ND WD 180 EN - NY 24, 2024, by one of their stalwarts, Doug Wheeler.

I went in blind, and I couldn’t recommend anything else. Blissful naïveté. Stop reading, go and experience it for yourself. My words will not capture the experience of putting on a pair of microfiber shoe coverings and sliding around the white space. This is where I will leave you, gratefully naïve reader, atop the epoxy and in front of two sheets of light. There is a surprise, and I would be a poor sport to ruin a surprise.

By Isaac Crown Manesis
Images courtesy the artist and David Zwirner

Accompanying the new installation a floor above, Ad Reinhardt: Print—Painting—Maquette similarly contemplates light and color through more traditional media. The show celebrates a series of prints, Ten Screenprints by Ad Reinhardt, the artist made in response to his traditional paintings. It is smartly curated, a sharp presentation of a complex body of work. A work on paper “ur-proof” is framed aside its accompanying finished print — the idea and its execution. In this way, we can see how Reinhardt worked to transmute his oil paintings to the hyper-flat surface of a screenprint. It feels like it was curated by an art teacher, eager to show the process as its own form. It is a nice show and seems in line with the numerous works-on-paper gallery shows and fair presentations of other contemporary masters this fall (I want to ask the aforementioned Christie’s exec: “In our current macroeconomic environment, are works on paper inferior goods, macroeconomically speaking? Like, because of the vibecession?”).

And then downstairs, Doug Wheeler. For the buzz? But there are no phones allowed; you won’t see it on TikTok. Even the gallery’s glossy photography seems to keep the piece, DN ND WD 180 EN - NY 24, 2024, at a distance, presenting it as an almost lifeless backstage. I snuck in just before the gallery closed for the evening. The line was still long — "how many people thought they were waiting for free alcohol?”, I wondered. You are allowed to view the work in shifts, and gallery docents usher small groups of people through at specific intervals.

Behind all seen things lies something vast; the process of knowing is a path that can only be walked in one direction.

As you wait to enter, you sit on a bench beside a rubbish bin of crumpled protective booties, similar to ones you might wear touring an apartment on Billionaire’s Row. From your seat, you can see into a glowing room, subtly fluctuating in luminosity and laced with occasional cool purple tones. The installation has only one passageway, so you see the faces of the previous group as you enter: almost certainly awestruck and delighted.

My viewing companions were an affectionate couple and a solo woman. We entered a cavernous room featuring two sheets of light — the platonic ideal of a white cube. I initially thought the booties were props in commodity theater, but immediately, was impressed by a quiet space free of any marking; its hermetic qualities are essential to how DN ND WD 180 EN - NY 24, 2024 works. In front of the glowing portals — almost oversized depression lamps — are two quadrilateral inlays made of glossy epoxy rather than the painted matte white of the rest of the room. They feel like shadows to the light walls, and I was careful to transgress them initially, not knowing what was precious and what was participatory in the space. I gingerly slid onto them, approaching the walls of pure light. The best comparison I can make is to the windows of the aliens’ ship in Arrival. Having this reference in mind, and summoning my best Amy Adams, I looked through the portals to a misty and otherworldly space of unknown dimension. It was clear to me what was going on: ahead was a sheet of glass, mysteriously recessed behind some kind of beveled frame and beyond a misty room with some sort of light installation hidden among fog machines. It was nice, I thought, a subtle perceptual trick, a refreshing moment of quiet in Chelsea’s maelstrom of glass and speculation.

Imagining glass, and the ensuing tragedy of a migratory bird flying to its brisk end on the glass of a Billionaires’ Row skyscraper, I was careful in my approach. I inched my head closer and closer to the light wall, and finding nothing, looked to the docent for a suggestion on how to proceed. He smirked and motioned me forward. I took a step and entered a white void.

I started laughing. The woman started laughing. Beyond the light walls is a “ganzfeld”, a featureless room within which light itself feels thick, voluminous, and softer than it does elsewhere. I walked forward into seemingly endless space knowing logically, though somewhat disbelieving, that I would soon hit something. Eventually, my feet caught the slope of the floor, seamlessly curving up to join an invisible wall. My first experience of DN ND WD 180 EN - NY 24, 2024 can be best described as near-constant discovery. The work does not yield itself to quick-glance judgments, what you think is happening is often incorrect. The initial room of the installation, what I later understood as an antechamber, is pleasant, but underwhelming. It was not the heaven I was promised. However, each subsequent exploration — stepping onto the epoxy, moving through the portals, and walking around the ganzfeld — felt daring and unexpected.

I could describe the work poetically: behind all seen things lies something vast; the process of knowing is a path that can only be walked in one direction. I could find a metaphor. Plato’s cave is the most salient. Or maybe gender: the passageways as a fictively dualistic representation of gender norms, the ganzfeld the truth of our unbounded humanity. Or perhaps psychoanalysis: the vestibule, the superego; the passageways, ego; and ganzfeld, id –– arrange this set differently, my Freud is rusty. Or, narratively and spiritually: the vestibule is a pleasant purgatory of sorts (maybe life itself), the passageways faith and disbelief (or death, two ways), and the ganzfeld a serene plain representing the most optimistic notion of the persistence of our souls. But Wheeler and Zwirner offer us no such poetry, only the concrete referent of DN ND WD 180 EN - NY 24, 2024 a plane flying through night and day’s transition wherein to change direction is to gaze upon a different temporality entirely.

To this end, a purple light begins on one side of the field and slowly dissipates before swelling subtly on the other side of the space. The light seems to decrease in luminosity at some points, feeling materially heavier or lighter depending on where you are in the work. I had walked to the edge of the work, in line with the passageways, when I began to see a subtle pool of shadow, defining an area of the floor. I walked through it, tracing out the outer edge of the installation. For another passage, I focused on the sounds I was hearing while moving through the work. As I walked, I spoke to myself, enjoying the incomparable echo of that space. At once, I felt a pressure in one ear and noticed that I could only hear the echo coming from that side. I realized that I had, through sound alone, found the precise centerline of the installation. In these ways, the work can really only be made sense of through experience and exploration. Wheeler’s installation seems to spatialize intuition itself, wherein the viewer is forced to trust embodied knowledge in an encounter with art, a very rare moment.

Doug Wheeler is a first-generation Light and Space movement artist (think Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, and James Turrell) and a lifelong pilot. He has described flying as total immersion in light, a disorienting situation in which directions can become confused. For this work, a mature ganzfeld study from the 84-year-old artist, Wheeler has condensed his considerations to the precipice of a day as observed from the air. Having never flown, my understanding of this phenomenon is largely informed by the writing of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who described the deserts of his crashes as similar to flying through a void. Wheeler’s installation is the closest I have come to feeling the sensations he described. Wheeler articulated his early hopes for his work in a 1968 interview with Time magazine, saying, "I want the spectator to stand in the middle of the room and look at the painting and feel that if you walked into it, you'd be in another world." Only 56 years later, he has given us that other world.

Photographs of his work are almost crass. Visitors look as if on a Hollywood special effects stage, dwarfed by flat nothingness. A camera cannot capture the strangeness of being in a space without knowing its volume or the completely enveloping field of light that is the ganzfeld. But they do show something essential about his installations, a body suspended in light. Though it makes a boring photograph, when you are that body, all you can perceive is that light, as thick as space itself.

The work is so elemental, so stark, that it is difficult to describe using precise language; it is difficult to speak about it objectively for this reason too. It is most comparable to an architecturally scaled sensory deprivation tank, and I found myself wondering, on a very literal level, where the work ended and my imagination began. Most visitors leave swearing there is a fog machine hidden somewhere. Wheeler’s work draws a fine line between desolation and hallucination, literalizing and materializing light itself. Within DN ND WD 180 EN - NY 24, 2024 I found myself thinking about the vacuum of space. It is difficult to imagine a void because light and matter are ubiquitous in our experience of existence — we often experience air and darkness as emptiness, though true emptiness is not something we have ever encountered. Space itself feels thick inside Wheeler’s installation, and the work allowed me to feel the presence of my existence as a being made of matter within a constant soup of other matter. There, surrounded by more things than in most moments of my life, I was able to imagine nothing.

Since experiencing it, I have craved it almost hourly. There is a house I visit in my dreams every other night or so. In it, there is a hidden room only accessible via a secret pathway. In months past, I have not been able to find the room, and, when I have, other people have been there. Recently, Wheeler’s ganzfeld has taken its place. I will leave a space and suddenly will have entered its void.

Art

Renell Medrano's Lambón

October 06, 2024

On view through November 2nd, Bronx-born photographer Renell Medrano's homecoming exhibition Lambón — a Dominican slang term for "kiss-ass" — at Water Street Projects in lower Manhattan features a collection of editorial work and personal archives grounded in the space's bare stucco ceiling, exposed beams, and industrial piping. The show, commissioned by WeTransfer, includes editorial shots of Kendrick Lamar and Solange, powerful collective work from Ice Studios, the creative hub Renell co-founded, and never-before-seen personal works — photos captured during her travels to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Egypt.

Medrano's 2019 short film PELÚCA, playing on loop in a black-curtain-lined viewing room, feels like a living, breathing extension of the still moments on the walls.