News
August 27, 2015Albany Institute to Host Free Artist Talk with Eric Egas on September 3
The Albany Institute of History & Art is pleased to host an Artist Talk with Eric Egas, the featured artist in the museum’s new exhibition Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas on Thursday, September 3. Egas will be at the museum to talk about his artistic vision, his process, and give a guided introduction to Seeing Double. This event will start at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public as part of the Albany Institute’s free Thursday evenings (free admission each Thursday from 5 – 8 p.m.). Light refreshments will be served and guests are asked to RSVP to 518.463.4478 ext 403.
More about the Exhibition:
Audience is central to Eric Egas’ work with anaglyphs. Anaglyphs, which are three-dimensional stereoscopic images, trick the eye into seeing depth with 3D glasses. Egas’ compositions coax onlookers to participate and enter into spaces created by his oversized printed photographs. His focus on anaglyphs evolved from his work with installations that enclosed the viewer within multiple changing images to evoke imaginary worlds between dream and memory. Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas is his first anaglyph exhibition of this size in the United States. Seeing Double will open at the Albany Institute of History & Art on August 15 and will run through October 25.
In this experiential exhibition, Egas engulfs viewers in situational modalities through the selection and placement of anaglyphs that explore human relationships with nature, the meaning of the absurd, human aggression, and aesthetic impulses. Thirty-five prints averaging four-feet square, show the range of Egas’ career experimenting with the medium. Visitors will explore the exhibition with anaglyph viewers which will allow them to experience the depth and contrast of the photographs.
“Eric Egas is an artist who forces us to question what we see. Or more precisely, he challenges us to see beyond what is readily apparent,” says Albany Institute’s Chief Curator Doug McCombs. “When you look into his anaglyphs filled with things and people and plants, new discoveries unfold one after another, revealing surprises of visual delight. The Albany Institute is committed to exhibiting the work of exceptional regional artists and we’re fortunate to have such a creative and stimulating artist as Eric Egas here in the Capital Region.”
Egas lives and works part of the year in Greenville, New York and Vieques, Puerto Rico. As an artist, Egas has been interested in the properties of visual experience and our behavior in a visual environment. As an exhibition designer at the New York State Museum in the 1960s, he experimented with environmental, installation, and multimedia artwork. He became interested in anaglyphs when he questioned how spatial perceptions he was creating in these three dimensional installations could be transferred to “flat art.” His subsequent experiments with anaglyphs showed him that he wanted to create compositions that provide a multisensory experience for viewers and place them inside his images. An avid adaptor, he utilizes evolving technologies to create his art and values the scientific processes that take his compositions from “flat art” to a world of exploration by his viewers.
“The anaglyphs were first made exploring the environments created by hunting trophy collectors,” says Egas. “I find this subject enduringly captivating, in part, because of its intersection with the relationship between man and nature. These situational compositions continue to offer unanticipated permutations. The ambiguities manifested in this relationship have a metaphorical richness and depth, a mantra to our weirdness as a species.”
He also finds that, “Weirdness is an important subject because its identification is part of our human alarm system designed to identify a threat to safety at a primal level. As part of the evolutionary process we can learn what weirdness is and how it is possibly an indicator of how the future will be different from the present. Then again to actually invest in the making of weirdness is a sort of laboratory of freedom from the mundane. We might view our everyday world from a new vantage point.”
There will be opportunities to meet with and hear from Egas during the run of the exhibition. On Thursday, September 3, Egas will give a guided introduction to the exhibition and discuss his work with anaglyphs. This program will start at 6PM and will include light refreshments. It is free and open to the public as part of the Albany Institute’s free Thursday evenings (free admission each Thursday from 5 – 8 p.m.). On Sunday, October 25, Egas will return to the museum to present a special lecture and guided tour of the exhibition at 2PM. This lecture and tour is free with museum admission.
The Albany Institute of History & Art is located at 125 Washington Avenue in Albany, New York. Free parking is available in the museum’s lot at the corner of Elk and Dove Streets. The museum is open Wednesday-Saturday 10AM-5PM, Thursdays until 8PM*, and Sunday Noon-5PM. On Tuesdays, the museum is open to registered groups only. The museum is closed on Mondays and some holidays. Admission is free for Institute members; $10/adults; $8/seniors; $8/students with ID; $6/children 6-12; FREE/children under 6. *AIHA now offers free admission on Thursdays from 5PM-8PM.
For more information, visit www.albanyinstitute.org or call 518.463.4478.
