COLUMBUS, OHIO.- The new exhibition Vanishing Point, on view May 21–August 14, 2005 at the Wexner Center Galleries at The Belmont Building, reveals the uncanny and often eerie beauty of everyday public spaces. Organized by the Wexner Center, Vanishing Point features photographs, paintings, drawings, video, and mixed-media installations that explore the aesthetics of contemporary urban “non-spaces.” These ubiquitous public realms—convenience stores, hotel lobbies, shopping malls, airport terminals, parking lots—are often considered anonymous, banal, or otherwise socially and culturally insignificant. Rather than objectively documenting these spaces, the artists in Vanishing Point interpret them by focusing on their experiential and atmospheric qualities. Despite the public nature of these places, most of them are depicted as devoid of people.

“Vanishing Point is one of the first shows to investigate the surprisingly dramatic ways that everyday public spaces can affect us,” says Claudine Isé, associate curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center.

“While classic architectural photography strives for objectivity by creating a sense of distance between the viewer and the building, the works in Vanishing Point will make visitors think about the ways that even the most familiar and banal public spaces can have a tremendous impact on us over time.”

With more than 60 works by more than 20 artists, the exhibition will fill up all 7,500 square feet of gallery space at The Belmont Building. A fully illustrated catalogue, featuring essays by Vanishing Point curator Claudine Isé and noted art historian and cultural critic Hal Foster, will accompany the show.

The Works and the Artists - Vanishing Point features both abstract and representational work in a variety of media by an international roster of young artists, including Sarah Beddington, Hélène Binet, Fabian Birgfeld, Dike Blair, Marco Brambilla, Joy Episalla, e-Xplo, Jonah Freeman, Sabine Hornig, Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, Craig Kalpakjian, Carla Klein, Luisa Lambri, Won Ju Lim, Daniel Mirer, Sarah Morris, Edward Ruscha, Deborah Stratman, Amelie von Wulffen, Corinne Wasmuht, Amy Wheeler, and Carrie Yamaoka.

The show features many photographic works, with depictions that include Daniel Mirer’s disorienting perspectives of architectural spaces in Columbus, New York City, and Havana. Alexander Birchler and Teresa Hubbard’s large-scale photographs Tinseltown 20 and Tinseltown South depict two different movie theaters from the Tinseltown chain, each of whose façades were photographed over the course of 24 hours, then digitally compressed into a single image. Fabian Birgfeld’s photographic triptychs that were taken in various airport terminals, subway stations, and bank lobbies across the globe hone in on the anonymous grandeur of these “placeless” public spaces. The exhibition also includes a number of film and video installations, including Sarah Morris’ stunning new film, Los Angeles, a portrait of Tinseltown during the week leading up to the Academy Awards; Sarah Beddington’s short video loops exploring the delirious urban landscape of modern Shanghai; Deborah Stratman’s acclaimed film In Order Not to Be Here, a starkly poetic mediation on contemporarysuburbia’s obsession with security borders; and Won Ju Lim’s spectacular room-sized installation that constructs a sparkling cityscape out of Plexiglas models and projected footage of Southern California oil refineries.