Take a minute to imagine something you see every day - perhaps your car, an appliance, or maybe the building you work in.
Now, take that image and tear it apart. That's right - rip it to up.
OK, now put it all the pieces back together again, but not the way they were before. Instead, create something with an appearance and function that is unrecognizable from the original.
And now you should have some grasp of the philosophy behind Reconfigure, a group art exhibition now on display at the Richard Levy Gallery.
In one grainy black and white image, children play on a beach - all gazing up at what a viewer would expect was a ball, but is instead layers of pink and purple cutouts resembling mountains. In one corner, a reel from the 1999 film "Run Lola Run" sits on top of a pedestal, its delicate film pushed up into a tall cone and hauntingly illuminated from below. At the front of the gallery, and along another wall sit what look like globes. But when you get closer, their truths are revealed - they are torn shreds of maps scotch-taped into a blue, green and yellow sphere, the names of cities and continents torn and mismatched.
The exhibit, according to Adam Henry, its New York City-based curator, is aimed at challenging the viewer to rethink his or her perception of everyday things. Comprising video, sculpture and painting - and a few pieces that fall somewhere in between - the majority of pieces from Henry and the 13 other artists in Reconfigure impose new uses and realities to familiar forms.
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"This multimedia exhibition focuses on the artists' impulse to systematically break apart pre-existing materials and re-order it into fresh, new orientations," Henry wrote in a statement.
Henry, who grew up in New Mexico and Colorado and finished his undergraduate work at UNM, culled most of the work for the exhibit from artists he knew in graduate school at Yale and from work he did for a city-funded project last year at the World Trade Center. Several artists are also from New Mexico.
Henry's own piece, "A Few Things Have Happened #1," is at first glance a tranquil aerial photograph of a lush patchwork of fields. But large shreds of torn paper stand like leaning sentinels or abstract buildings along the roads that divide up the plots of land. Much of his study of art has centered on map theory and the psychological impacts of urban environments.
Other pieces include:
l Artist Song's "Template No. 013," a sheet of neon-pink plastic with cut holes that descend in size to give the impression of perspective - reminiscent of an architect's drawing template.
l Arthur Ou's "#21 (Between pink and purple, the Color of our Life)," in which the artist has gouged out valleys and mountains in a two-inch thick chunk of sandwiched plywood, suggesting a contour map as the different layers of wood are exposed. This piece is part of a series of three, which includes the aforementioned altered photograph of the kids on the beach.
l A series of murky UFO photographs lifted from television stills and enlarged to reveal the garish, pixilated detail by artist Claire Jervert.
l New Mexico native Sarah Oppenheimer's sculpture "Marketing Conversion Package," part of her recent work exploring how the built environment impacts human movement. Set inside a large cardboard box on the floor, the three-dimensional piece consists of tiny diagrams, cardboard mockups and other materials arranged in a manner reminiscent of architectural models, yet indiscernible as anything resembling reality.
l And "Round Three," an eerie slow-motion video of two androgynous figures fighting and wrestling - or perhaps dancing - that is part of a series of three videos by artist Rebecca Eppenstein.
And that's just scratching the surface. The work in this exhibit runs the gamut from haunting and distant to pieces that are strangely familiar - invoking images of some item that a viewer can't quite remember.
A fixture in the Downtown art scene since 1992, the Richard Levy Gallery caters to the abstract and minimalist artists who are just emerging or are beginning to gain a following, said gallery director Viviette Hunt. Exhibits come from all over, but interest in Reconfigure has been enhanced by the fact that some of the work is by artists originally from the state.
"It's kind of a homecoming for some of them," she said.
Reconfigure will run at the Richard Levy Gallery, 514 Central Ave., until April 27. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
