Parallax Gap

Parallax Gap by FreelandBuck

FreelandBuck, Parallax Gap, 2017, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, © FreelandBuck, photo by Libby Weiler

The immersive, site-specific installation explores examples of interplay between craft and architecture.

Parallax Gap transforms the Renwick Gallery’s Bettie Rubenstein Grand Salon into a visual puzzle. This immersive, site-specific installation explores examples of interplay between craft and architecture through a ceiling-suspended structure running the length of the Renwick’s iconic gallery. The installation embraces both Eastern and Western concepts of perspective through trompe l’oeil effects and multiple vanishing points to create a sense of soaring architectural volume.

Drawings of ceilings of nine different iconic American buildings are fabricated using a collection of skewed vantage points. Laid near or atop one another, they create layers of both recognizable and abstracted architectural space that change as viewers move underneath. These perspectival illusions operate through the concept of parallax, or how the distance or depth of objects appears to vary when viewed from different lines of sight. Parallax Gap is the Renwick’s first foray into commissioning examples of large-scale craft in architecture.

Parallax Gap was designed by FreelandBuck, an architectural design practice based in New York and Los Angeles. Independent curator Helen B. Bechtel coordinated the installation.

Description

Drawings of ceilings of nine different iconic American buildings are fabricated using a collection of skewed vantage points. Laid near or atop one another, they create layers of both recognizable and abstracted architectural space that change as viewers move underneath. These perspectival illusions operate through the concept of parallax, or how the distance or depth of objects appears to vary when viewed from different lines of sight. Parallax Gap is the Renwick’s first foray into commissioning examples of large-scale craft in architecture.

Parallax Gap was designed by FreelandBuck, an architectural design practice based in New York and Los Angeles. Independent curator Helen B. Bechtel coordinated the installation

Visiting Information

July 1, 2017 – February 11, 2018
Open Daily, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m
Free Admission

Videos

SAAM Stories

Splash Image - Parallax Gap: Building a Drawing
Craft and Decorative Arts
08/22/2017
Parallax Gap: Building a Drawing
Helen B. Bechtel, independent curator and coordinator of the installation, Parallax Gap, fills us in on the relationship between architecture and American craft. Parallax Gap remains on display at the Renwick Gallery through February 11, 2018.
A photograph of Howard Kaplan on a plane.
Howard Kaplan
Writer
Splash Image - Mind the Gap: Parallax Gap Now Open at the Renwick Gallery
Craft and Decorative Arts
06/29/2017
Mind the Gap: Parallax Gap Now Open at the Renwick Gallery
Parallax Gap, an architecturally-inspired work now on view at SAAM's Renwick Gallery is suspended from the ceiling of the Grand Salon and runs the length of the room.
A photograph of Howard Kaplan on a plane.
Howard Kaplan
Writer