This publication accompanies the exhibition
Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space, organized by Alma Ruiz and presented at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 12 December 2010–27 February 2011.

 

Director of Publications: Lisa Gabrielle Mark
Editor: Elizabeth Hamilton
Designer: Rebeca Méndez
Printer: Dr. Cantz’sche Druckerei, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany

 

Note from the designer:

The book design reflects the participatory nature of the exhibition ‘Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space’ in that the reader is invited to participate actively in order to fully experience the book. The specific inspiration came from Carlos Cruz-Diez, who, in the documentary film Life in Color: Cruz-Diez by Cine Archivo, explains how he was able to produce a whole solar spectrum using only two colors, red and green: ‘If the two colors are side by side, a third color is generated.’ By turning a ‘rectangular’ module into a linear one and engaging in a specific action, he was able to generate a third color (yellow) where the two lines touch. ‘I destroyed the original form and eternal binomial form-color.’ Cruz-Diez’s realization that ‘color is an autonomous event that does not require form’ became the platform and core of all his subsequent work.

The red and green colored gels included in this book work by absorbing their own color wavelength in the spectrum, thus revealing other colors. place the red gel over the text to read the green text (Spanish) and place the green gel over the text to read the red text (English).

The design of this catalogue pays homage to the work of Thomas Widdershoven and Nikki Gonnissen, of the Amsterdam design firm Thonik, who conceived of tinted reading gels for The Best of Wim T. Schippers (utrecht, The netherlands: Centraal Museum, 1996).

The book is set in Wedding Sans and Type Jockey (TJ) fonts designed by Andrea Tinnes of Typecuts, Berlin, Germany.