Arts and Events Calendar

Long before large art exhibitions and blockbuster shows, crowds were awed by traveling shows called "phantasmagoria," in which familiar scenes and stories were performed with the use of magic lanterns and rear projections to create dancing shadows and frightening theatrical effects. These lively, interactive events incorporated storytelling, mythology and theater in a single art form that entertained while providing a space for thinking about the otherworldly — playing with the viewers' anxieties regarding death and the afterlife.

A comparable trend can be seen in works by contemporary artists who create ghostly images to reflect on notions of absence and loss, using spectral effects and immaterial mediums such as shadows, fog, mist and breath. These artists' approaches range from the festive to the ironic, counterbalancing the emotionally charged, often somber implications of their subject matter.

The shadow — literally, the absence of light — represents something that is beyond the object yet inseparable from it. In many of the works in Phantasmagoria, shadows are used to allude to death, the obscure and the unnamable, and to construct allegories of loss and disappearance.

The artists evoke the history of the shadow theater in several of these pieces, including a video animation by South African artist William Kentridge; and the shapeshifting shadow cast by French artist Christian Boltanski's revolving doll, which recalls imagery from the carnival as well as figurines used to celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Mist, breath and fog are often associated with mystery; in their double status as perceptible yet almost nonexistent phenomena, they suggest evanescence or absence. For instance, one senses the fleeting yet precise way that memories arise in the spectacular work by Brazilian artist Rosângela Renno, which shows video images of anonymous family-album photos projected onto intermittent effusions of vapor. In Danish artist Jeppe Hein's work, viewers sitting on a bench are unexpectedly enveloped in a sudden cloud of mist. Throughout the installations presented here, artists' use of shadows or actual fog evokes the alluring enigma and magic of Phantasmagoria.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalog, containing a text by curator Jose Roca, director of the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica, Bogota, Colombia; and a short story by Bruce Sterling.

Museum Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12-5 p.m.

Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence is a traveling exhibition co-organized by Independent Curators International (iCI), New York, and the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica, and circulated by iCI. The guest curator for the exhibition is Jose Roca. The exhibition, tour and catalog are made possible, in part, by the iCI Exhibition Partners and the iCI independents.

Related Events

Aesthetics and the Brain, September 9, 6 p.m.
Dr. Irving Biederman probes the neural basis of aesthetics. Part of Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative.

The Eye of the Needle, October 14, 5:30 p.m.
Museum director David Wilson discusses the history of ingenuity and artistry on the microscopic scale. Part of Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative.

Phantasmagoria: Music of Clouds, Fog, Smoke, Absence, Loss and Death, October 21, 7:30 p.m.
Victoria Kirsch and fellow USC instrumental and vocal alumni present a concert inspired by evanescence.

Icons of Culture: A Lecture by Jim Campbell, November 5, 5 p.m.
Artist Jim Campbell gives a talk about his work, which is featured in the show.