Christopher Squier
Flattened and Disordely
Black Space, BABEL Visningrom for Kunst, Trondheim, Norway
August 2016

The compact lenses used for lighthouses are ornate objects that seem more suited to Versailles than any functional setting. Based on an optical lens designed at the tum of the 19th century, their rapidly changing shapes developed alongside the progressing science of optics. The resulting lenses were adapted to fit the most recent theories on the behavior of light. As such, they appear as much rococo as rationalist: a morphing collage of concentric rings, facets, and constantly changing arcs in glass.

The exhibition presents an alternate dimension of optical devices, separate from the linear restrictions of Enlightenment thought. These 3D renderings make up an archive of fictional lenses which, alongside cyanotype processes and repurposed objects, remix the historical tools for vision with early film genres and printed documents. Together, they present an irregular archive of containers, surfaces, and lenses connected in various ways to the histories of vision, photography, and surveillance.

A short artist book The Right Eye is presented alongside this exhibition. The booklet (edition of 5) can be borrowed from the gallery attendant.

Christopher Squier (b. 1991, Lawrence, KS) is an artist based in San Francisco. He recently graduated with an MFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute (2015). Using dark humor and combining images of luxury and violence, his projects reference crime scenes, horror movies, and architectural rubble. His work has been shown in Boston, Córdoba, Prague, and San Francisco, and is in the collection of the Prague Gallery of Czech Glass.