Čedomir Vasić: Mutable Images, Shifting Vision

Čedomir Vasić
Mutable Images, Shifting Vision
February 22–April 20, 2019 – Extended to May 10
Williams Center Gallery

 Using well-known history paintings, such as Jacques-Louis David’s Coronation of Napoleon and John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, as a point of departure, Čedomir Vasić takes his audience on an exciting journey punctuated by intense aesthetic experiences, optical illusions, and a multiplicity of ideas, questions, and emotions.

In Vasić’s work, contemporary technologies modify and empower the reception and perception of historical events. The artist uses photo-editing software to remove all figures from the depicted events. Devoid of human content, Vasić’s doctored images are stripped of their intended meaning and significance; only decorative and deceptively simple interiors or landscapes remain. Vasić combines the altered and the original images using a lenticular printing process; when viewed from different angles, the visuals appear to change, rendering images that are simultaneously present and absent.

Lazy July Day in the Colonial State House  2018

December Noon in the Cathedral, 2018, After Jacques-Louis David (French,1748–1825), The Coronation of Napoleon, 1804 (1805–07, Louvre, Paris)

December Evening in an Important Town House, 2018, After Ivan Tišov (Croatian, 1870–1928), The Unification of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, 1918 

January Day in the Hall of Mirrors, 2018, After Anton von Werner (German, 1843–1915), The Proclamation of the German Empire, 1871 

Christmas on the River, 2007/2018, After Emanuel Leutze (American, 1816–1868), Washington Crossing the Delaware, December 25, 1776,

Expecting Guests, 2018, After Jennie A. Brownscombe (American, 1850-1936), Washington Greeting Lafayette at Mount Vernon, 1784