Cornell hosts Iowa City artist’s latest installation

MOUNT VERNON — The latest installation by Iowa City artist Leighton Pierce appears in an exhibition opening Sunday, Jan. 14, in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall at Cornell College.

“Convection” runs through Feb. 11. An opening reception is Jan. 14 from 2 to 4 p.m., with a gallery talk by the artist at 3 p.m.

“Convection” consists of six separate video loops projected onto five 3-D objects arranged like a large jewel in the center of the gallery. Since viewers can walk around all sides of the clustered projections, no more than four video streams are visible from a single vantage point at any one time. At times, certain clusters of images meld into one large image; at other times, each stream is separate. The visual relationships among the separate images are always shifting as the viewer moves around the projections. Four channels of sound expand and refocus the imagery.

Through the use of rich cascading imagery against the counterpoint of the soundtrack, and through the use of multiple projections, Pierce disintegrates the projection plane, allowing viewers to embody the perceptions of the video solidly within themselves. His work encourages a different kind of viewing and listening—one in which listening and looking inward matters as much as looking outward.

Pierce is a professor in the department of cinema and comparative literature at the University of Iowa. His work has been on view at the 2002 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Walker Art Center and The Exploratorium in San Francisco, among others.

Programming for the Peter Paul Luce Gallery is made possible through a generous endowment from the Henry Luce Foundation Inc. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.