Volume (Renwick)

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Leo Villareal, Volume (Renwick), 2015, white LEDs, mirror-finished stainless steel, custom software, and electrical hardware, 114 × 249 ¹⁄₂ × 78 ¹⁄₂ in. (289.6 × 633.7 × 199.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Janet and Jim Dicke, Tania and Tom Evans, Paula and Peter Lunder, and Debbie Petersen in honor of Elizabeth Broun, 2016.13, © Leo Villareal

Artwork Details

Title: Volume (Renwick)
Artist: Leo Villareal
Date: 2015
Location: Renwick Gallery
/
Stairway
Dimensions: 114 × 249 ¹⁄₂ × 78 ¹⁄₂ in. (289.6 × 633.7 × 199.4 cm)
Copyright: © Leo Villareal
Credit Line: Gift of Janet and Jim Dicke, Tania and Tom Evans, Paula and Peter Lunder, and Debbie Petersen in honor of Elizabeth Broun
Mediums: light art
digital art
Mediums Description: white LEDs, mirror-finished stainless steel, custom software, and electrical hardware
Classifications: Media Arts
Subjects: Abstract
Object Number: 2016.13
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2016.13

Artwork Description

Only part of Villareal's artwork is visible in the materials suspended above the staircase. This hardware serves primarily as a vehicle for the visual manifestation of code--an artist-written algorithm employing the binary system of 1s and 0s telling each LED when to turn on or off. This simple command creates lighting sequences that will never repeat exactly as before. It also changes how we think of code, from a line of characters that can be read on any screen to an object that must be witnessed in the museum.

Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery, 2019

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With a background in sculpture Leo Villareal explores the relationship between software light and space to create artificial life like that of Volume (Renwick) at the Renwick Gallery.

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WONDER

WONDER celebrates the renovation and reopening of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery with an immersive web of magic. Nine major contemporary artists, including Maya Lin, Tara Donovan, Leo Villareal, Patrick Dougherty, and Janet Echelman, were invited to take over the Renwick’s galleries, transforming the entire museum into a mind-expanding cabinet of wonders. Mundane materials such as index cards, marbles, sticks, and thread are conjured into strange new worlds that demonstrate the qualities uniting these artists: a sensitivity to site and the ways we experience place, a passion for making and materiality, and a desire to provoke awe.