Jim Campbell, Tilted Plane, 2011; promised gift of the artist and Hosfelt Gallery.
This is the first SFMOMA presentation of Jim Campbell’s mesmerizing light installation Tilted Plane (2011), which explores the threshold of perception. The immersive work features a suspended grid of hundreds of incandescent bulbs whose filaments have been replaced by custom LEDs. Each light represents a “pixel” of information from an ultra-low-resolution moving image of birds in flight. Visitors are invited to step inside the room-sized artwork to experience the angled image plane from different perspectives and see how the flickering patterns of light may be discerned as shadowy forms in motion. The renowned San Francisco–based artist similarly translated two-dimensional imagery into three dimensions in the 2011–12 SFMOMA atrium commission Exploded Views. Campbell also is the creator of a major public art commission for the new Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, scheduled to go on view in 2018.
Generous support for Jim Campbell: Tilted Plane is provided by Lionel F. Conacher and Joan T. Dea.
