Photo credit: Douglas Hill/PMCA
A quick plug and photos from the opening of “Every move you make, every step you take” over at LAist:
Megan Geckler’s 3-D optical installation, Every move you make, every step you take, is made from assembled from thousands of strands of multicolored flagging tape and takes up a whole gallery room inside the museum.
Megan Geckler’s latest site-specific installation of colourful flagging tape is entitled Every step you take, every move you make, created for the Pasadena Museum of California Art. This giant installation transforms a 25×30 ft. space into a carnival of stripes, engulfing the spectator who cannot help but feel part of the artwork. As Geckler says, “Generally, I think about how the viewer is going to encounter the work. A ‘wow or WTF’ moment, followed by wandering around and experiencing the piece from all different angles. There is a sense of play, but also quiet.” An interesting detail about the creation of the piece is that over 700 man-hours were required. (Source)
I have a new installation opening soon at the Pasadena Museum of California Art entitled, “Every move you make, every step you take”:
Pasadena, CA – The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) is proud to present Every move you make, every step you take, a new installation by Los Angeles artist Megan Geckler in the PMCA Project Room. Geckler’s site-specific architectural installations are assembled from thousands of strands of multicolored flagging tape, a plastic ribbon typically utilized by surveyors to demarcate space on construction sites. The end result resembles an updated three-dimensional version of string art that shares the seemingly kinetic territory of the Op Art and Light+Space movements. These site-specific projects are also strongly influenced by minimalism, but retain a sense of play and delight.
The bulk of Geckler’s work lies between art and design. Each installation site informs the optical order and systematic reasoning that is the foundation of her process. An entryway to a space offers multiple pathways and destinations—each with their own readymade focal point for the work. Before working, Geckler studies the intent of the architecture, the intended use for the space, and the flow
of foot traffic. She then creates a virtual model of the space, which she uses to draw her installation ideas. The flagging tape, a material the artist discovered in graduate school, becomes the surface and a point of departure for color studies, achieved by layering the material over itself, much like a painter would use a glaze, exponentially increasing the palette. Non-adhesive, like rope or yarn, but devoid of the loaded backgrounds, the tape offers immediacy. The manner in which the tape is used is obvious and deliberate. Generally, a gesture is repeated over and over until the area is completed. The freestanding sculptural forms and large-scale installations are defined entirely by their surface, hollow on the inside, challenging the notion that sculptures have both weight and volume. Essentially drawings in space, they bisect and alter perception of the architecture and become seemingly kinetic as the viewer’s orientation changes. Made of translucent plastic, the installations appear to be machine-made and futuristic, concealing the handmade quality of the work.