Review of the "Op Art Revisited" Exhibit at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

A friend and I decided to take advantage of the museum's free admission last Friday to go see the "Op Art Revisited" show at the Albright-Knox. Since it was a special exhibition, there was a nominal fee to enter, but we learned that museum members were able to see it for free. We had both been meaning to buy memberships for years, and we figured that, as seniors in college, this was a good a time as any! The exhibit itself was located on the upper level of the Gallery. Visitors must walk through the current "Natalie and Irving Forman Works on Paper" exhibit to get to the Op Art, and I thought the Minimalist works on paper were a nice foil to some of the later works we'd be seeing at Op Art.

I have always been a fan of Op Art and optical illusions in general. I would go out of my way to look for optical illusion books way before I started looking for books on Botticelli and Gentileschi! I still have a special place in my heart for Op Art, so I was excited to have a chance to see the exhibit, which absolutely did not disappoint. There was a vast range of styles, from Jean Pierre Yvaral's "Acceleration #15," which was made up of cords and painted wood, to Klaus Geissler's strange "Space Chamber," which made you feel like you were really looking into another world, to Bridget Riley's dreamy canvases that seem to swim before your eyes. The works seemed to either have been created predominately in the "age" of Op Art (the 1960s) or much more recently, such as from the year 2000 and on.

The entire exhibit was arranged in a series of five galleries, which were set up a little awkwardly to my taste. However, the lighting was excellent in all rooms but one, where there were several lighted artworks all in close proximity to each other - the lights reflected off the other pieces, and took away from the overall effect of the individual works. There was also a relatively equal balance between male and female artists - Bridget Riley even had a room dedicated to her. 

I had two favorite pieces in the exhibit. The first was located in the first room, and was created by Josef Levi. His work, "Simurgh," from 1965, is the definition of an optical illusion. It's surreal to think that by simply placing two identical sheets of mesh grates several inches apart, you can create an illusion so entrancing that it can almost give the viewer a headache if he were to look at it for too long! I couldn't find a bigger picture than this, and unfortunately, you can't really get a feel for the illusion without seeing it in person.

My other favorite piece had an entire room dedicated to it. "Triple Ripple," by Olafur Eliasson, is an installation that uses three slowly spinning, vertical disks, that are suspended from the ceiling. On one side of each disk, there are concentric circles that are made from mirrors, and with the help of a single lamp in the corner, they catch the viewers' reflections as they revolve slowly. It was extremely creative and the piece created a mood that was both calm and curious. It was interesting to compare Levi's 1965 piece to Eliasson's, which was created in 2004. The desire to create Op Art is still alive, but each decade had very different interpretations of the same subject.