Amazing 3D exhibition
A dazzling exhibition of 3D art is messing with visitors’ heads in Cape Town
VISIT any big museum and you’re likely to be escorted smartly from the premises should you have the gall to touch one of the artworks – and woe betide you if you’re caught sneaking a pic of a painting that takes your fancy. But a 3D exhibition in Cape Town has chucked all these rules out the window: touching the art and photographing it is the whole point. In fact, you’re positively encouraged to sit, lie and walk on the works – because through interacting this way the dizzying 3D effects are brought spectacularly to life.
“No hallowed halls, no soft chamber music and no photography bans,” reads the promotional material on the exhibition’s website, Incredible Illusions.
And when you see the exhibits you understand why. One painting, disconcertingly, shows a pile of bricks seemingly tumbling out of the picture on top of you – and you almost can’t help ducking as you walk past.
In another birds fly straight out of the frame, away from a pouncing cat. Take a seat on the floor next to yet another work and you become trapped in a bubble blown by one of the figures in the painting.
This is art that messes with your head – smoke-and-mirrors stuff that gives you vertigo and makes your jaw drop. In other
words, you won’t believe your eyes!
The mind-bending works are by Kurt Wenner (59), an internationally acclaimed artist from Santa Barbara, California, in the US who started creating 3D pavement art back in 1984 in Rome, Italy. His aim is to stamp out the notion that art is for snobs – he wants his art to excite the audience’s visual and sensual sides.
KURT discovered his passion for art and design as a teenager and went on to study design at university. He later joined Nasa as an advanced scientific illustrator and when he was 24 he left the American space agency, sold everything he owned and moved to Italy, where he started his 3D adventure.
“Visual art has been my way of understanding the world, finding meaning in life and relating to other people and cultures,” he explains.
“The experience I’m offering is the ability for people to immerse themselves in the imagination. Most of the works were done in pastel. I have made these by hand from a recipe I developed more than 30 years ago and I’ve kept with this technique because it photographs very well and the public can see the artistic process in the final works.”
Kurt says he’s delighted at the opportunity to display his work in the Mother City.
“I visited Cape Town some years ago and was very impressed,” he says. “Santa Barbara is similar in many ways, although I must concede Cape Town is even more elegant and spectacular.”
Kurt says he hasn’t given much thought to the combined total of hours spent on his creations. The best way he sums it up is, “literally thousands of hours of design and execution”.
And his art is for everyone – so, parents, if you’re in Cape Town with the kids this winter holiday, head to the V&A and blow their minds. “Seriously cool,” was the considered verdict of one impressed EXTRA SOURCES: KURTWENNER.COM, WATERFRONT.CO.ZA 10-year-old. High praise indeed.
Incredible Illusions is on show until 23 July at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.
‘No hallowed halls, no soft chamber music and no photography bans’