Josiah McElheny: The Past Was A Mirage I’d Left Far Behind

This publication provides a comprehensive document of Josiah McElheny’s site-specific Bloomberg Commission exhibiting at the Whitechapel Gallery.

Reflection, light and transparency are defining themes of Modernism and provide a leitmotif for the American sculptor Josiah McElheny’s 2011 Bloomberg Commission, The Past Was A Mirage I’d Left Far Behind. Seven mirrored, sculptural screens double, triple and refract the projections of reconfigured abstract films, proposing a new history of abstraction as a fragmented, sensory experience.

New York-based artist Josiah McElheny is a sculptor, performance artist, writer and filmmaker, best known for his use of glass with other materials. For his Bloomberg Commission he uses light and mirrors to transform the Whitechapel Gallery into a Hall of Mirrors.

This book provides an introduction to the artist, a record of his new work, and locates both within the history of art. Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute, introduces the work of McElheny as an observer of history. Daniel F. Herrmann, Eisler Curator and Head of Curatorial Studies at the Whitechapel Gallery presents an in-depth account of the commission. Tamara Trodd, Lecturer for Twentieth Century and Contemporary Art at Edinburgh University, joins the artist and the curator for a conversation about the ideas and interests behind this major new commission.