Tem­po­rally Bound (Three Gor­gons): An instal­la­tion by Chris Shaw & Chuck Sperry

June 2011 to January 2012

SFMOMA Window Gallery, Natoma Street, SF
Acrylic on 3 sec­tions of 6 artic­u­lated hard-panels.
Each sec­tion mea­sures 6’8″ x 12′ installed. (6’8″ h x 18′ flat.)

Chris Shaw and Chuck Sperry have been close friends for many years, but have only worked in tan­dem cre­at­ing art on a hand­ful of occa­sions. Both artists have both incor­po­rated and appro­pri­ated con­cepts and imagery from a myr­iad of sources in their designs for Rock Posters and paintings.

“Tem­po­rally Bound” marks this col­lab­o­ra­tion by the two artists not only as an event, but also in the form and sub­ject of the art­work. The work’s form is derived from an asian “accor­dion” book, while the sub­ject, “Three Gor­gons” reflects the artists’ west­ern influ­ences. The free inter­twin­ing of East­ern and West­ern ref­er­ences is not only evoca­tive of the mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal world, but also of San Fran­cisco, a cul­tural melt­ing pot on the Pacific Rim.

The instal­la­tion is com­posed of 3 sec­tions of 6 artic­u­lated hard pan­els, painted in acrylic and hand-made paints. The artic­u­lated form allows the art­work to bend or com­press, the which lets the art­work take almost any form, in 2 or 3 dimen­sional space. Sperry and Shaw’s design con­cept for the Natoma Street win­dows of the SFMOMA Window Gallery called for an 18 foot wide hor­i­zon­tal image to com­press into a 12 foot wide area. The artists chose wooden hard-panels for the instal­la­tion sub­strate which cre­ates a sturdy self-supporting struc­ture with 52º angles, a golden pro­por­tion har­mo­nious to the instal­la­tion space.

In their expe­ri­ences in cre­at­ing Rock Posters, Shaw and Sperry had both worked pre­vi­ously with multi-panel poster images. When com­pos­ing the “Three Gor­gons” the artists paid spe­cial atten­tion to the way the images would frag­ment when the pan­els were in their com­pressed and folded state. Because many of the view­ers pass­ing the instal­la­tion on the side­walk would be approach­ing at very oblique angles, the artists cre­ated semi-symmetrical images that would appear to change and unfold as the viewer passed by. View­ing the art at oblique angles and close prox­im­ity cre­ates a dis­tinct sense of “false abstrac­tion”, while view­ing the pieces from afar (the oppo­site side­walk) gives the viewer cohe­sive, rep­re­sen­ta­tional images of the Three Gorgons.

The 3 Gor­gon images were cre­ated to work indi­vid­u­ally or together as a unit. In tan­dem, the artists each cre­ated their own dis­tinct ver­sions of a Gor­gon (Shaw,left / Sperry, right). While each artist cre­ated their com­po­si­tions and selected color indi­vid­u­ally, cer­tain deci­sions were made together to help enhance the over­all art­work when viewed in a unit. Red and Gold were both cho­sen as main color com­po­nents, which again ref­er­ences East­ern art. The over­all bold col­ors and hard graphic black­line of the Gor­gons addi­tion­ally reflects the artists work as poster artists and print­mak­ers. Sperry and Shaw then worked together to cre­ate the 3rd, cen­ter Gor­gon, a “hybrid” of their styles that would fur­ther bridge and inte­grate their indi­vid­u­ally cre­ated Gor­gon panels.

Sperry’s highly tex­tured Gor­gon (right panel) evokes the paint­ings of Vienna Seces­sion, pri­mar­ily the work of Gus­tav Klimt, who is an influ­ence in Sperry’s use of metal­lic pig­ments and tex­tured lay­er­ings of paint. Sperry’s Gor­gon offers a dynamic man­i­fest inves­ti­ga­tion in paint­ing of the styles and themes of the poster tradition.

The cen­ter, “hybrid” Gor­gon as a co-creation is a meld­ing of the 2 artists ideas and styles. Shaw’s sub­tly ren­dered mother-of-pearl Gorgon’s face is accented with cop­per and black metal-flake paints. Sperry cre­ated the Gorgon’s pre­req­ui­site head of snakes, com­bin­ing gold ser­pen­tine forms with lin­ear rays of sil­ver and cop­per. The two com­po­nents of the image are seam­lessly inte­grated with a bold black­line, char­ac­ter­is­tic of both artists’ work. This piece will also pro­duce the opti­cal illu­sion men­tioned above as the viewer passes the art­work on the sidewalk.

Shaw’s Gor­gon (left sec­tion) is a hard-line and sharp shad­owed, woman’s face in pure yel­low with pupil-less red metal­lic eyes. The Gor­gon is accen­tu­ated by a head­ful of styl­ized gold snakes based on a pre-Inca Moche head­dress. The sym­me­try in the face and forced per­spec­tive cre­ates a dis­tinct “Hol­beinesque” opti­cal illu­sion when viewed in the folded 52º state, as the face will appear to rotate as the viewer passes. Shaw’s work with large-scale stage art fos­tered an inter­est in the way large images can change when viewed at very oblique angles.