December 04, 2019
ArtCenter Exhibitions presents Lia Halloran: Double Horizon
on view at Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery
Exhibition dates: January 30 through March 15, 2020
Opening reception: Thursday, January 30, 7 until 9 p.m.
ArtCenter Exhibitions announces the exhibition, Lia Halloran: Double Horizon, on view January 30 through March 15, 2020 at the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery on ArtCenter College of Design’s South Campus. Featuring an immersive, three-screen projection of the same title, Double Horizon reflects the artist’s ongoing investigations of the body’s relationship to space in three simultaneous, large-scale, aerial views of the greater Los Angeles landscape. The video footage used to create the installation was captured by four cameras mounted to an airplane the artist piloted during more than 30 flights (while learning to fly). Utilizing a mirroring effect that flips and inverts the original imagery, and accompanied by an original musical composition by Allyson Newman, the installation turns navigation into poetic refraction, disorienting yet also mesmerizing the viewer in its wake.
Double Horizon begins straightforwardly as Halloran’s plane leaves the runway in the San Gabriel Valley, swerving towards the hills forming the northern border of the LA basin, and crossing the county’s vast and varied topographies, from the coast to the urban core. Before long, the dynamic panoramas start to fracture: linear features morph into geometric shapes, horizons collapse into and recede from each other, skies develop into material forms, and space becomes altogether strange and otherworldly. Halloran, often captured in the frame as pilot, guides the viewer through a journey that speaks as much to the phenomenology of the landscape as it does to exploration.
Double Horizon is Halloran’s most recent work in her ongoing investigations into the physical, psychological and scientific explorations of space. The installation was first exhibited alongside recent works from her series of photographs, Dark Skate—depicting the after-image effects of the artist’s performances riding a skateboard with a light source attached to her body—at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in spring 2019.
For the past 15 years, Halloran’s studio practice has been in dialogue with science and nature, and addresses topics such as astrophysics, magnetism and gravity, perception and scale, giant crystal and ice caves, cabinets of curiosity, taxonomy and classification, the periodic table of elements, and interconnected relativity. Halloran grew up surfing and skateboarding in the Bay Area and developed a deep love of science while working at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, her first job while a high school student.
Halloran has participated in many interdisciplinary projects and collaborations including curating exhibitions, creating platforms for critical dialogue on contemporary art, and establishing connections between science and art—most notably coauthoring a forthcoming book with the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Kip Thorne about the warped side of the universe. Her series, Deep Sky Companion, reinterprets the 18th century French comet hunter Charles Messier’s Catalogue of Deep Sky Objects in 110 paintings and their photographic twins. 24 works from this series were included in the Williamson Gallery’s 2016 UNCERTAINTY exhibition, and all are on permanent display at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.
Halloran, who lives and works in Los Angeles, was born in 1977 in Chicago, Illinois. She received a BFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999 and an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University in 2001. She is currently associate professor in the Department of Art at the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.
Lia Halloran: Double Horizon is presented in conjunction with SKY, a major group exhibition at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery (1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, CA 91103), on view February 20 through August 30, 2020. SKY is an immersive examination of how humans have conceptualized the sky throughout history, and how the unfolding realities exposed by new science are affecting change in the understanding of ourselves, our planet and beyond. Included in the exhibition at Williamson will be Halloran’s 18-foot wide cyanotype The Great Comet (2019).
Location:
Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery
ArtCenter College of Design
1111 S Arroyo Parkway
Pasadena, CA 91105
mullin.gallery@artcenter.edu
Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery Hours:
Tuesday through Sunday, 12 noon to 5 p.m.
Friday, 12 noon to 9 p.m.
Closed Mondays and holidays
Admission to the gallery is free and free parking is available at 1111 S Arroyo Parkway Pasadena, CA 91105.
About the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery: Located in the South Campus lobby of ArtCenter’s 1111 building, the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery serves as a welcoming point for students, faculty, staff and the public. Extending the reach of the College’s multifaceted Exhibitions department, this modestly-scaled space is optimized for high impact presentations of solo exhibitions and small group projects. Situated at a major gateway between Pasadena and North East Los Angeles, the space was designed to accommodate media in a wide variety, from intimately scaled works of art to automobiles, reflecting and intersecting with the multiple disciplines of ArtCenter’s curricula. The adjacent exterior courtyard provides opportunities for social and educational programs.
About ArtCenter Exhibitions: ArtCenter Exhibitions includes the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at the Hillside Campus in Pasadena above the Rose Bowl, the Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery, the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography Gallery and the Hutto-Patterson Exhibition Hall at the South Campus a mile from Old Pasadena, and ArtCenter DTLA Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. These curated spaces embody ArtCenter's institutional will to understand artistic thinking and design strategies as levers in promoting social advancement, the pursuit of humanitarian innovation and use of critical inquiry to clarify objectives and truths. Using the lens of contemporary art and design, the mission of ArtCenter Exhibitions is to ignite emotional resonance, provoke intellectual dissonance and conjure unexpected pathways of thinking.
About ArtCenter: Founded in 1930 and located in Pasadena, California, ArtCenter College of Design is a global leader in art and design education. ArtCenter offers 11 undergraduate and seven graduate degrees in a wide variety of industrial design disciplines as well as visual and applied arts. In addition to its top-ranked academic programs, the College also serves members of the Greater Los Angeles region through a highly regarded series of year-round educational programs for all ages and levels of experience. Renowned for both its ties to industry and its social impact initiatives, ArtCenter is the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. Throughout the College’s long and storied history, ArtCenter alumni have had a profound impact on popular culture, the way we live and important issues in our society.
Contact:
Teri Bond
Director of Media Relations
ArtCenter College of Design
teri.bond@artcenter.edu
O 626 396-2385
