I Spy

I Spy presents compositions that seem to draw inspiration from the practice of Eadweard Muybridge, a teller of truth through the lens of a camera. Muybridge, also known as ‘the man that captured time’, was a photographer who was active during the late 1800s. He is best known for his work “Attitudes of Animals in Motion”, where he famously photographed a horse galloping at full speed, proving that all four legs come off the ground simultaneously. Muybridge utilized the camera in ways that were never done before, creating realities that were outside of basic human understanding, and dedicating his work to revealing truth through the study of motion. 

Like Muybridge, the artists selected for this series, Phil Bergerson, Cynthia Greig, Chih-Chien Wang, and Arnaud Maggs make work that considers complementary aspects of truth and perceived reality. In Wang's work, we discover work that attempts to reveal multiple understandings of perception through the objects we surround ourselves with. Bergerson uses found tableaux to make sense of society and our surroundings, conveying a depiction of the world that is specific to his sensibilities. Likewise, Greig plays with scale and repurposes objects to manufacture a surreal reality that questions perception vs. truth — and always with a playful approach. Finally, Maggs focuses on systems of identification, ephemera, and how collections are compiled and documented. Similar to Muybridge, Maggs uses the camera's technical qualities to manipulate and edit compositions rather than performing this action afterwards. 

Each of these artists focuses on documenting an alternative reality to what we already know. In this collection, take a dive into the fabrication of understanding to bring forth a new truth.