Art Talk
Tony DeLap at Laguna Art Museum
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp talks about magic and perception in the artist’s retrospective
By Hunter Drohojowska-Philp • • 4m ListenMost artists have a consuming interest that parallels their work in the studio, work that can be isolating and challenging. Cooking, music, architecture and surfing all come to mind. Tony DeLap has long been fascinated by magic. Not metaphoric but the actual acts of professional performers such as Harry Houdini.
Tony DeLap, Triple Trouble II, 1966, Courtesy of the artist and Rena Bransten Gallery
This retrospective is a timely reminder of DeLap’s role in the development of a distinctly West Coast minimalist abstract art in both painting and sculpture. Using hard-edged geometric forms and shaped canvases, DeLap was concerned with act of perception — key to the light and space movement — and was close friends with a number those artists, especially Craig Kauffman.
Tony DeLap, Erdnase, 1985, Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Gift of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, and Mary Patricia Anderson Pence
Tony DeLap, Thauma II, 1986, Laguna Art Museum, Gift of Mason and Elizabeth Phelps
Tony DeLap, Lompoc, 1963, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Robert and Naomi Lauter
Over subsequent decades, DeLap refined and reordered this self-perpetuated experiment. The role of trompe l’oeil, tricking the eye, is crucial. In one gallery, flat black paintings of circular or triangular or rectangular forms are contained by incongruous wood edges that define deep shadows around the picture.
Tony DeLap, Mona Lisa, 1962, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, Gift of Dr. Samuel A. West
But what about the magic? His sculpted paintings play with illusion but some works are even more specific. In the museum’s main gallery, a cleanly finished natural wood beam hovers in space over a pair of hinged glass plates. This Floating Lady sculpture refers to the magician’s illusion that a woman is hovering in pure air. The idea has been used by DeLap at least since 1971 when he performed the magic trick at a Duchamp performance festival.
Tony DeLap: A Retrospective, installation view, Laguna Art Museum, 2018, photo by Chris Bliss
This show includes a watercolor of that magic act and other studies that show the ways that DeLap’s paintings of nested rectangles refer to Houdini’s trick boxes. DeLap, who was enough of a magician to belong to the Magic Castle, admired the sincerity of a practice that asks viewers to believe the illusion. Isn’t that what artists do?
