Reflections on Culture

On Sunday, as a part of the Museum Council Fellows trip to New York, we visited several galleries on the Lower East Side. Stephan Stoyanov, the founder and director of LUXE Gallery hosted us for the current exhibition, Black Mirror/Espejo Negro. We were lucky to meet the artist, Pedro Lasch. The exhibition features a series of photograhs, which examine several aspects of another of Lasch's exhibitions by the same name, currently at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke.

The exhibition is a commentary on the relative neglect of pre-Columbian art at museums in the US -- even top museums which have deep holdings. The photographs depict the sculptures at the Nasher which turn their backs to the audience, facing instead, the wall on which hangs black mirror-like rectangles. Upon closer examination, these are not merely black mirrors, but include within images of classic hispanic paintings in pale, ghostly images. The pre-Columbian status exchange glances with the classic paintings, while we look at them both. Finally, we see that in fact we are a part of the art, as we see ourselves in the reflection as well. Lasch's photographs at LUXE are lit such to encourage these reflections, so that the total effect is constantly changing. As a final piece of the installation, Lasch includes a black reflective section in the Gallery's street-level window. Like the others in the exhibition, the work includes a faintly visible image of a historic work. This exterior-facing piece is able to include reflections of the historically hispanic, but now diverse neighborhood.