Page 13 - 2017 Fall Newsletter

Virtual Reality Has Arrived in

the Art World!

Post-Processing artist gives visitors a dazzling experence

The accelerating development of virtual reality technology — which lets you escape into another world through a
blackout headset — is finally rumbling the art world. A new generation of artists is beginning to produce virtual-reality
artworks — some for display in galleries.

The current retrospective of Panamanian artist Cisco Merel at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts (one of the Art Galleries
at TCU) includes an impressive virtual reality component. Merel creates site-specific installations of painting and
sculpture that produce extraordinary moments of beauty and color. Often this response to a location is to reimage the
space using a sophisticated system of lines and shapes. Post-Processing explores these ideas through various means and
transforms the gallery space into a new utopia; an open space for meditation and where all things are possible.

At Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Merel has transformed the gallery into a vibrantly painted environment that surrounds
and is in dialogue with, a series of brightly colored tubular sculptures. The playful arrangement of lines and color planes
create illusions of space and form. Merel’s tropical palette is inspired by life in contemporary Panama, from the hectic
streets of the capital city to its beautiful, natural landscapes with diverse plants, birds and animal life.

Thanks to the generous assistance of TCU partners Brad Trussell (Innovative Collaborator, Mary Couts Burnett Library)
and Joshua Tooley (Information Technology Division), visitors can engage in an exploration of spatial dimensions using
virtual reality technology. Wearing a VIVE headset and using controllers, visitors can choose from a selection of the
artist’s components to build their sculpture in a virtual landscape. Virtual reality, by contrast, is a medium without limits
— a medium that tries to parallel life itself. The wonder and experience you get when you put on the headset – you get
immersed in the experience.

Encounter art through more than mere illusion, push the limits through virtual reality and into a dazzling world.

The Post-Processing exhibition by artist Cisco Merel at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts runs Oct. 21 to Dec. 2, 2017.

Fall 2017 13