Sunday, September 06, 2009

John Dreyfuss, Enigma

September 12 - October 24, 2009

Washington DC – Hemphill Fine Arts presents Enigma, a site-specific installation by sculptor John Dreyfuss.

Enigma opens on September 12, 2009 with public reception from 6:30 – 8:30pm.

The greatness of visual art lies outside of its visible parts. An artwork’s concealed meaning must be decoded to reach its full significance. Dreyfuss’s Enigma, named for World War II German coding machines, consists of stylized submarine parts emerging from and submerging beneath the gallery’s surfaces. The artist partnered with a leading aerospace and engineering company ATK (Alliant Techsystems, Inc.) to produce the sculptural elements of the installation. The character of this type of collaboration speaks to the uneasy relationship between the individual citizen and the geo-political dynamic of our times. The installation generates a range of emotions – a calm flows from its perfectly smooth forms, implying immense power; the scale is an act of aggression; and the purpose of a submarine instills a feeling paranoia.

“... the whole form is never revealed...Enigma presents three opportunities to encounter fragments of a single idea. Ultimately, however, the immensity and force of the whole relies upon the viewer’s imagination.”
-John Dreyfuss

This exhibition is concurrent with John Dreyfuss: Inventions, which can be seen from September 8, 2009 through January 17, 2010 at the American University Art Museum at the Katzen Arts Center.



HEMPHILL
1515 14th Street NW
#300
Washington DC 20005
202-234-5601

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