KAI 10 – Arthena Foundation:
"Frozen Mirrors"
October 31, 2024 – April 26, 2025
Is “frozen” time an even greater illusion than deceptively real depictions of an object? This question informs the exhibition Frozen Mirrors which, following on from Phantoms and Other Illusions and Bodies, Grids and Ecstasy, explores further facets regarding illusions and how they are reflected in contemporary art. Here, illusionistic images are juxtaposed with products of the imagination that often transpire to be illusions.
The title Frozen Mirrors was inspired by Umberto Eco’s observation that the photographic plate is a “freezing mirror”. Before the invention of photography, mirrored images were the only ones that were not created by human hand. Mirrors, however, are unable to conserve or suspend in time the image they reveal. The retention or “freezing” of a certain moment or occurrence only became technically possible with the advent of the photographic snapshot.
The works presented in this group exhibition reflect the suspension of time in a period when we are unremittingly surrounded by moving images. On display, among others, will be "photorealistic" paintings that are not all based on photographs; artefacts that have been replicated exactly life size or in monumental dimensions; mise en scène of real objects that look like their own trompe l’ œils; photographs of everyday situations arranged like still lifes or conflating longer spans of time.
Today, motifs inspired by this still life tradition continue to have a place in product advertising, especially for foodstuffs. Likewise, faithful simulations of nature and optical illusions still enjoy great popularity in commercial applications of creative digital tools from design to AI software. When artists address and reflect this context, the question prompted by the vanitas motif associated with still life as a reminder of the transience of all that is earth-bound and mortal is whether there is still any reality behind medial projections and algorithmic computations.
