Lenticular print is enjoying something of a popular revival as more and more people see commercial marketing and advertising campaigns featuring it. So far this year we’ve seen lenticular versions of posters and bus adverts for film and TV including Scream, Hotel Transylvania, and Midwich Cuckoos, video game The Quarry, BBC Radio 1, a Bonobo album cover, and in store promotional materials for Lego. Large scale lenticular has also started making appearances covering plain walls in locations like offices and airports, and the Government of Maharashtra had a huge piece created of the ocean floor for it’s Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Centre. But these are just the commercial side of things, what’s the lenticular art news for the first half of the year?
A blend of the two worlds first with the infamous contemporary artist Marina Abramovic, who recently announced a new project alongside CIRCA, the Cultural Academy of Radical Contemporary Art. Developed on the theme of heroism the work includes a video art piece screening at multiple locations worldwide, a range of NFTs, and a limited edition lenticular art printed postcard.
Utilising the medium much more thoroughly in the art itself, in New York a new public art installation launched created by Rose DeSiano, and called Lenticular Histories. Located in Prospect Park it reflects on leisure and activism, celebrating the history of the park, and it’s important place amongst the local community with a range of photography from archives. Presented on corrugated, double-picture style surfaces, the installation also incorporates stereoscopes, mirrors, prisms, and lenticular art prints to help bring the display to moving life and connect the various pieces together.
Cheech Marin’s new Chicano Art Museum welcomes you with huge lenticular
One of the biggest pieces of lenticular art news is that an exciting new art museum opened in June in Riverside, California; the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture has been opened by the cult movie actor, who has been a lifelong champion of Chicano art. Opening with exhibits of more than 700 art prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures and other art works collected by the actor, the museum plans an ambitious range of programs including educational opportunities, research fellowships, film projects, special exhibitions, and some completely new art.
One of the great showpieces of the new art gallery is a 26 foot tall lenticular installation in the entrance lobby, commissioned by Chicano artists the de la Torre brothers. The two storey high artwork, brought to enhanced life with a lightbox system back, makes a huge impact as you enter the museum and has been a centrepiece of much of the press coverage and the launch night event itself.
Drawing on the history and geography of the Southern California Inland Empire region, the piece makes a commentary on the climate crisis unfolding around us, through a vast image of the Aztec earth goddess Cōātlīcue, beckoning the viewer back to a more simple life. As you move past the LED backlit image, it shifts, from a vast image of the goddess made from flowers, to one made of lowrider cars, confident that technology and carbon sequestration is our future. The de la Torre Brothers are further celebrated in the museum with a special retrospective exhibition of their work covering a range of mixed media stretching back 30 years.
Gary James McQueen’s new lenticular exhibition at West Chelsea Contemporary
The nephew of the fashion designer, who worked for years with the textiles at the McQueen fashion label, has launched a collection of artwork intersecting fashion and art, through the lenticular art print medium. Working with both animations to subtly change images, and 3D depth illusions, the collection has been described as holographic and ghostly and represents a further exploration of technology from an artist who has already worked with 3D modelling as well as more conventional media.
It’s wonderful to see two more very bold artistic investments into the lenticular art medium; while a souvenir postcard is always a fun addition to an exhibition, seeing lenticular take centre stage at The Cheech, or cover the entire McQueen collection, feels like exciting progress for the artform. More lenticular art news at the start of next year.