Exhibit Overview
Laguna Art Museum presented a collection of works by contemporary artists who mimic reality with a playful twist, in the process raising questions of authenticity and duplication. Often using off-beat materials, and showing a sly sense of humor, they took as their subject-matter items that anyone might pass over without a second thought, such as food, furniture, or domestic knick-knacks. By turning the ordinary into art, they got us to think about how things are made, what they are made from, and how we see them in our everyday experience.
.
Many of the works in Faux Real were about the pleasures of trompe l’oeil, the creation of an eye-deceiving illusion—the delicate ceramic works of Richard Shaw, for instance, or the sculptures of Matthias Merkel Hess and Lauren DiCioccio. Each artist, in his or her own way, offered a rich, textured challenge to us to question our visual surroundings. Kim MacConnel’s reconstruction of a living room extended the tradition of the interior genre painting, allowing us to move into the space.
.
While generally humorous in tone, the exhibition also included works that, at some level, offer a critique of American culture and consumerism. The clay food sculptures of Julie Bozzi asked us to consider “American types” of food, presenting what could be Cold War-era, Sunset magazine images as a cabinet of curiosities.
.
In addition to those mentioned above, the exhibition included the following artists: Michael Arcega, Sandow Birk, Libby Black, Amy Caterina, Daniel Douke, Ala Ebtekar, Cheryl Ekstrom, David Gilhooly, Jean Lowe, Gifford Myers, Kaz Oshiro, Elyse Pignolet, Walter Robinson, and Stephanie Syjuco.
![KPCC-logo](https://lagunaartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/KPCC-logo.jpg)
![](https://lagunaartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Laguna-Art-Museum-Subscribe.jpg)
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Receive news about collections, exhibitions, events, and more.