12.12.2010: NO SHIRT, NO SHOES REQUIRED AT THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY

It’s 80 degrees in LA right now. You could go to the beach to celebrate this, but then you’d probably find yourself in a crazy amount of IT’S 80 DEGRESS IN DECEMBER OMG traffic. If you’re not lucky enough to have a pool at home (or if you are, because I’m pretty sure yours doesn’t have a sick light show), may I suggest a dip in Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida’s “psychedelic swimming pool,” officially titled Cosmococa–Programa in Progress, CC4 Nocagions, currently up at The Geffen Contemporary. ”Psychedelic swimming pool?” you may ask. “In a museum?” Well, the MOCA has put together "Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space," the first major museum show to “situate pioneering Latin American artists among the international canon of those working with light and space” by recreating large installations by the likes of Carlos Cruz Diez, Lucio Fontana, Julio Le Parc, Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida, and Jesús Rafael Soto. While I certainly have reservations about a show that places Latin American artists within a larger contemporary art context by showing them with…other Latin American artists exclusively, this is definitely a rare chance to see some major, influential works. The word suprasenorial was first used by Oiticica to describe the all-consuming nature of his installations. The use of the word “installations” here is actually sort of questionable; really, what these artists do is use light and color to create environments that make the audience, by walking through them, as integral a part of the work as what was made by the artist. I’d say it’s safe to assume that you don’t become part of a work without having a pretty epic experience in it, and really, if you’ve seen or are familiar with light works by non-Latin-North American and European artists, this show will blow your senses out of the water. I guess literally? "Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space" is up at the Geffen Contemporary until February 27, 2011.

Article originally published on the TENOVERSIX blog.