New Wexner Exhibit

The galleries at the Wexner Center for the Arts are featuring a meditation on interaction with art. The three installations though separate in conception and medium, pull together to take the viewer on a journey through the ways art can be experienced.
Robin Rhode’s Catch Air is the artist’s playful, photographed interaction with his crude chalk drawing of everyday objects on the sides of buildings and city streets. He is acting the part of anyone who ever imagined themselves as part of a piece of art, interacting and playing with works traditionally off-limits to human touch.
On an entirely different level of interaction is Beyond the Blue, a celebration of the work of the architecture firm Coop Himmel(B)lau. Award winning designs, photographs of their buildings (including the addition to the Akron Art Museum) and three dimensional models provide insight into the firms work in adding to and redefining spaces built for human usage.
The ultimate machine used by every person is of course the human body, the star of William Forsythe’s Transfigurations. The instillation of videos and interactive computer programs allows Forsythe to highlight ways he is using the human body to explore new ways of artistic presentation through various medium. Included in the exhibition was the limited run premier of his latest work Monster Partitur, a hybrid sculpture and dance performance that twists the human body and skeleton into almost unrecognizable contortions.
On the surface, the instillations have nothing in common. Yet individually and as a collection each encourages the viewer to think about how we interact with art. We are reminded that art is often fun, it can be functional and it is always a way for an artist express meaning without ever having to say a word.