Devorah Sperber, After The Mona Lisa 2 (studio view), 2005, spools of thread, aluminum ball chain, stainless steel hanging apparatus, acrylic viewing sphere, metal stand, 216 x 218 cm

NORTH ADAMS, MA.-The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art opened the exhibit Interpretations: Devorah Sperber through September 1. This "marvelously zany installation artist" (The New York Times) makes sculptures that at first glance appear to be multi-colored abstractions composed of volumes of common craft materials like spools of thread, map tacks, or marker caps. When viewed through special optical devices like a clear acrylic sphere or a convex mirror, however, recognizable images from art history surprisingly emerge.

Interested in the links between art, science, and technology through the ages, New York artist, Devorah Sperber deconstructs familiar images to address the way the brain processes visual information versus the way we think we see. “As a visual artist,” she says, “I cannot think of a topic more stimulating and yet so basic than the act of seeing—how the human brain makes sense of the visual world.”

Devorah Sperber is a New York City-based artist whose mixed-media works have been featured in solo exhibitions at the Ljubljana Print Biennale, the Montclair Art Museum, the Centro Medico Train Station in San Juan Puerto Rico, and in solo and group shows in galleries in New York and around the country. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Sculpture.

Thread spool installation (view from main lobby entrance) 13' h x 54' w.