Exhibition Information

The Dowd Gallery is pleased to present Semblance, which features two site-specific sculptural installations by artist Ian McMahon. His monumental work transforms the space and interacts with the architecture while the deceptiveness of its materiality playfully misleads the viewer’s sense of sight.

Both installations, created entirely on-site, are imbued with performance. The short-lived apex of the works exists between the actions of construction and deconstruction. Too large to be removed as a whole, the inevitable physical demise of the sculptures is inherent in their size. The grand curtain in the main space, suggestive of the stage or theatre, will be destroyed in a public performance on the last day of the exhibition. In an instant, the huge piece will be reduced to rubble by the single, graceful drop of a steel bar, allowing light from the windows behind it to flood back into the room.

Knowing the defined temporality of the work brings an immediacy and rarity to one’s interaction with it, a sort of premonition of nostalgia. The overall objective of this exhibition’s fleeting actions is to give weight and preciousness to the viewer's experience with both the art and architecture involved, perhaps provoking a similar awareness about the life span of all artwork and the constructed environment outside the Dowd Gallery.

Funding for this exhibition generously provided by Seth Meisler ’76, the Auxiliary Services Corporation, a Virginia Groot Foundation Fellowship and an anonymous donor.