The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will present the first-ever realized work from a group of installations conceived by Doug Wheeler during the late 1960s and ’70s: Doug Wheeler: PSAD Synthetic Desert III, 1971, on view 24.03.2017 - 08.2017. Produced in close collaboration with the artist, the Guggenheim installation is developed from drawings executed in 1971 and will be on view in the museum’s Tower Level 7. In addition to the architectural modification of existing rooms to achieve a sensate impression of infinite space, which is characteristic of Wheeler’s work of the period, PSAD Synthetic Desert III incorporates an acoustic element: the work is a “semi-anechoic chamber” designed to suppress all but the lowest levels of ambient sound. The artist’s concept of Synthetic Desert is partly drawn from psychological and neurophysiological experiments in sensory deprivation that date back to the mid-20th century.
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Wheeler * 1939 Globe
also compares the impact of the work to his own experience of the Desert Southwest, where near-silent conditions profoundly influence the visual sensation of space. (Text: Guggenheim New York)
also compares the impact of the work to his own experience of the Desert Southwest, where near-silent conditions profoundly influence the visual sensation of space. (Text: Guggenheim New York)