Rich and rewarding disorientation at Lamont Gallery
Four PEA faculty members and a Boston-based painter explore sensory perception and meaning in "Clew: A Rich and Rewarding Disorientation."
It all started with an email from English Instructor Todd Hearon to Lamont Gallery Director and Curator Lauren O’Neal: Would she consider showing paintings by Deborah Barlow, whose work appears on the cover of Hearon’s No Other Gods, and hosting a reading of poems from the book? This germ of an idea quickly drew the interest of Jung Mi Lee and Jon Sakata, both concert pianists, transdisciplinary artists and adjunct music faculty. After a visit to Barlow’s studio, where the PEA faculty perceived tremendous synergies between their work and Barlow’s abstract, scale-defying paintings, a collaboration of multidisciplinary artists and gallery director was born. Over the next 18 months the initial idea expanded dramatically, fueled by what Hearon calls the “formidable imaginations” of the five collaborators, and they settled on a conceptual framework for an exhibition: the intermingling of text, sound and visual materials; an “amazement of navigation” to encourage discovery and confusion; and promoting sensory perception over analytical “understanding.”
“Clew: A Rich and Rewarding Disorientation” opened on January 20 as an immersive, multisensory experience. Like its eponym — “clew” traces back to the ball of thread Ariadne gave Theseus to guide him out of the labyrinth, and also refers to part of a ship’s sail and hammock rigging — the exhibition encourages exploration and risk-taking. A futon on the floor invites you to lie down and look up at a painting suspended at a rakish tilt from the ceiling. A soundscape deconstructs the human voice. Mirrors reflect visitors and hidden fragments of text. Trays of salt and crystals provoke impromptu drawing. Magnifying glasses and flashlights virtually mandate up-close inspection. Videos play throughout the gallery. And nowhere do you find traditional signs explaining the art.
Some visitors assess the space warily. Others engage without hesitation. One woman spontaneously performs a shadow play with her hands, using a reading lamp as light and a painting as backdrop. Children cavort, making their own marks in the salt trays, rearranging mirrors and leaving drawings on the wall for others to enjoy. Meditation groups come to feel the energy and slow down.
Below are edited excerpts from conversations with the artists that took place at the exhibit.
Q: Can you describe your collaborative partnership?
Deborah Barlow: From the beginning, I felt that we were speaking a visual language. And a word language and a sound language that I didn’t even know I knew how to speak. I don’t know what I could do next that could feel this authentic.
Jon Sakata: We’re very responsive to each other — whether we were exploring texts or visual experiences, sonic experiences, tactile experiences. Collaboration means something very different than “I’m from a certain discipline” — that’s what makes this transdisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary. We return to our arts very different creatures. We listen differently, we imagine differently, we verbalize differently and we feel differently because of the work.