When I first descended the stairs into the Helen Pashigan exhibit at the Pomona College Museum, I felt like I was entering a forest of acrylic trees rather than an art gallery. There were no paintings, no sculptures, and no human images. Instead, there were six tall pillars colored white, grey, green, and blue-green. Each of these pieces was listed as “Untitled” and the dates varied from 2007 to 2009.
On the ground beneath the structure nearest the entrance, the shadow was heart-shaped. My curiosity piqued; I wandered among the other five pillars and noticed that each structure had the same shape, but that their shadows were manipulated by the placement of lights.
When one light was situated at an angle, a heart was formed. If the light shone from directly above, two symmetrical lobes emerged. Two lights were directed at a transparent white pillar, resulting in two intersecting triangles whose rays expanded outwards towards infinity. In another case, no lamps were used, which generated a control with no shadow. The art of the structures was derived purely from physics.
“It’s pretty minimalist in concept,” Max Fortgang PI ’12 commented. “I like the fact that light is used as a medium instead of just sculpture.”
According to museum director Kathleen Stewart House, Pashigan is a member of the LA Light and Space Movement, which, beginning in the 1960s, has focused on using materials from new industry for their unique optical properties. Their pastels and oils were “the fiberglass, polyester resin, plastic, and glass introduced in growing high tech industries, and exploited by custom car and surfboard fabricators.” Artists include Peter Alexander, DeWain Valentine, Robert Irwin, Doug Wheeler, and also James Turell, who designed Pomona’s “Skyspace.” They explored the possibilities of the interaction of light, color, and space to create new dimensions of perception. Originally known as the Glass and Plastic School, they enticed solid substances to produce intangible radiances and surreal perspectives.
Pashigan’s work in particular evolved over the movement’s 40-year existence. In the museum, her more recent work——the large-scale light pieces——transition into her earlier pieces as one moves farther into the exhibit. This second room consists of a row of small, cast-resin sculptures placed against the wall with light from above. It’s a strict museum rule that no one can walk behind the collection.
“[It is] very enticing to go behind them, which is nerve-wracking,” William Heidlage PO ’12 said. “The artist doesn’t want them to be seen from the back. You can’t see where the color’s from.”
The sculptures are unsettling, because their color and form change depending on the viewer’s position in relation to the work. For example, one glass sphere, again called “Untitled,” has a red center surrounded by black when seen from the front, but as one moves laterally, the red and black melt into green and blue.
In a brown, mushroom-shaped piece, there appears to be a structure inside, but the light could be playing tricks. “Pashigan inserted acrylic elements in some of the early cast pieces,” House said. “The inserts at times acquire the force of a gesture imprisoned within the form, at other times vanish.”
The two sections of the exhibit express a sharp contrast in style. Both of these are well-done, although I am a bit more interested in her early pieces because they represent an idea at its conception. The large pillars’ main draw is their sheer awe factor.
Overall, the exhibit is visually stimulating and innovative. Daringly chasing after the ambitions of the Space and Light artists, it succeeds in its goal, as stated in the exhibit’s press release, of inciting “new modes of hypersensitive seeing.”
