Bridge Projects: Inaugural Exhibition, Phillip K. Smith, 10 Columns

Here are some photos I shot a year ago last month for Bridge Projects’ first exhibition, 10 Columns, by Phillip K. Smith.

(Yup, those are novices from Saint Michael’s Abbey exploring the shifting light of Phillip K. Smith’s installation.)

Bridge Projects is a contemporary art gallery and curatorial project based in Los Angeles, featuring experimental, research-driven exhibitions by local and international artists.

“Bridge Projects is pleased to present 10 Columns, Phillip K. Smith III’s immersive light installation created specifically for the 7,000 square foot exhibition space.”

“The faceted surface of the San Bernardino mountains and surrounding desert both frame Smith’s studio and inform his practice; perpetually shifting light and color refracting across the landscape inspires the artist’s exploration into phenomenology, optical theories, and color. As a result, change has become fundamental to the experience of his work. Through the use of reflective, geometric forms just larger than human scale, Smith has distilled something as monumental as a sunset to an intimate encounter.”

“Commissioned for the inaugural exhibition of Bridge Projects, 10 Columns features Smith’s signature mirrored surfaces and dynamic light program. Expanding on past site-specific installations, the artist adjoined mirrored rectilinear forms to the colonnades of Bridge Projects’ site at Santa Monica Blvd and Highland creating an architecture inside the existing one. The modular structure consists of thirty forms of equal heights and three distinct widths, adhering to the ten concrete columns in unique combinations of 90 and 180 degree angles that shift between aligning with and disrupting the grid of columns. The forms are animated by Smith’s patented light program. As the surfaces emit gradations of light and color, the dimensions and experience of the room shift and blur, evoking the changes of light in the Los Angeles atmosphere throughout the day. Recalling both LA’s Light and Space movement and ancient cosmologies, light is a resonant image for the beginning of Bridge Projects.”