Rick Gribenas’s Take me in., 2006, involves the literal comparison of two light sources: a gleaming yellow-orange illumination flooding the area above a gallery wall, and seven LCD screens, hung on the opposite wall, depicting outdoor daylight. The digital representation is created with small sensors that capture the shifting emanations reflected on a nearby white-painted windowsill and translate them to pale hues of white, yellow, and pink. As daylight fades and the doors of the gallery close, the monitors darken, but the sodium fixtures remain lit. Asserting the presence of the gallery throughout the evening, this interior light vigilantly filters out through the windows and turns the room into a glowing beacon in the twilight.

The window is the crux of this concise Conceptual piece, which is the artist's School of Art and Design MFA thesis exhibition: Gribenas’s installation highlights the transparent pane of glass as a two-way outlet. Here, light can be seen as a metaphor for information, whether objective or subjective. Just as the different colors of the empirical measurements do not illustrate equitable exchanges of light, pure data may not accurately translate the actual comings and goings of a social space. Gribenas provides a curious comparison that exposes the gallery as a designated space for multidirectional transmissions, both visible and intangible.
—John McKinnon Artforum [ more information ]

AD 597 - Master's Project, Prof. Doug Ischar