Eric Egas works with anaglyphs, three-dimensional stereoscopic images that “trick the eye into seeing depth” with red-blue 3D glasses. A few minutes before a recent press preview of his new exhibition at the Albany Institute of History & Art, Egas explained the challenge in getting people to engage with his work. The problem isn’t with the art itself; it’s getting people into a gallery where they will be taken in and absorbed by the otherworldly spell cast by these large-scale images. Once the people are in the gallery, he has them. Egas prefers people to view his work at first without, then with those 3D glasses (which will be provided to visitors by the Institute), to get a fuller understanding of what they are (and aren’t) seeing; his images are neatly described in the gallery notes as creating “imaginary worlds” that exist between “dream and memory.”
For example, take a look at Fippery (2012), reproduced here. It features a fascinating junk-shop storefront with any number of intriguing frames-within-frames. Add the 3D glasses, and the reflections in the shop windows and the depth of field in the entranceway turn it into something else. Walk into the show at the Albany Institute, where Fippery is the large-scale installation greeting you upon entering the exhibit, and it’s something else again.
The exhibit opens Saturday, and, while it was still in the process of being properly lit (and hung) at the time of the press preview, it was apparent that the more time you spend with the images, the more rewarding the experience is. Egas is fascinated by animal trophies, and there are a series of images of trophy collections, from random animal heads mounted in a Dallas furniture store to a trophy room in Vancouver, B.C., that’s like something out of one of Theodore Roosevelt’s fever dreams. He also uses historical 19th- and 20th-century images to create photo collages. An example of this is Wedding, in which a shrouded female figure superimposed on an elegant Victorian-era wedding scene registers as something between a spectre and the grim reaper, and adds a sense of luxurious despair to the tableaux.
Egas splits his time between the Capital Region and Vieques, an island just eight miles off the coast of Puerto Rico; both locales are prominent in his photographs. The specific locales, however, are subsumed in his overall interest in the relationship between man and nature. Some photos (for example, a series of horse pictures) are reproduced more or less in 3D “as is,” others not so much. The point is that, through the unnerving, weird worlds of his installations—the “weirdness”—the artist hopes that “we might view our everyday world from a new vantage point.”
Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas opens Saturday (Aug. 15) and will remain on view through Oct. 25 at the Albany Institute of History & Art (125 Washington Ave., Albany). On Sept. 3 at 6 PM, Egas will give a guided intro to the exhibit and discuss his work with anaglyphs; on Oct. 25 at 2 PM, Egas will present a special lecture along with an exhibit tour. For more info, call 463-4478.
