Get ready to be amazed by an exhibition filled with optical illusions and artistic sleight of hand! To separate what’s real from what is a clever ruse in Fool The Eye, takes an alert eye and the willingness to examine art carefully. Enjoy the visual journey. Take a few steps to the right and observe, draw your conclusions about what you think you see. Then, a few steps to the left reveals a whole new image. The guesses multiply. Is it a flat surface or a sculpture? Is it a photograph or a painting? Is it made of wood or bronze, rubber or steel? Is it real or faux? Expect the unexpected through moments of fascination, intrigue, shock, and astonishment.
Fool the Eye, on view at Nassau County Museum of Art’s Saltzman Fine Arts Building from Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017 through March 4, 2018, challenges viewers to experience the wonder of masterful artistic techniques. This exhibition includes examples of traditional trompe l’oeil (meticulously painted, hyper-real images) and a wide range of other approaches to illusion. See larger-than-life oversized objects, hypnotic geometric abstractions, sculptures made of unexpected materials, images with mind-bending impossibilities and fine art so seemingly realistic, they are (nearly) indistinguishable from real things. The magic will provoke debates in every gallery about reality and deception.
Artists throughout the ages have been intrigued by perceptual illusions, devising visual tricks to manipulate the perception of space, incorporating spatial illusion as an aspect of their art. Featured in this exhibition are 20th and 21st century artists whose work has explored illusion, including Salvadore Dali, Janet Fish, Audrey Flack, Jasper Johns, Judith Leiber, Roy Lichtenstein, Vik Muniz, Ben Schoenzeit, and Victor Vasarely.
Guest curated by Franklin Hill Perrell with Debbi Wells, Fool The Eye is the latest exhibition at the museum. Their previous collaborations for the museum have included Feast for the Eyes (July 2016), The Moderns: Long Island Collects (July 2015) and Garden Party (March 2014).
Nassau County Museum of Art is located at One Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor, just off Northern Boulevard. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Admission is $12 for adults, $8 for seniors (62 and above) and $4 for students and children (4 to 12). Members are admitted free. Docent-led tours of the exhibition are offered at 2 p.m. each day; tours of the mansion are offered each Saturday at 1 p.m.; meet in the lobby, no reservations needed. Tours are free with museum admission. Family art activities and family tours are offered Sundays from 1 pm; free with museum admission.
Call 516-484-9338, ext. 12, to inquire about group tours. Call 516-484-9338 for current exhibitions, events, days/times and directions or visit nassaumuseum.org.
Nassau County Museum of Art is chartered and accredited by New York State as a nonprofit private educational institution and is governed by a privately elected board of trustees.
