Click on image for larger view.

The Rorschach installation is consistent with our goal to reference the past with an eye for the future. This exhibition leaves all meaning to the observer. It presents images that demonstrate a dynamic specific to abstract art, the subtle process of non-spatial personal association and revelation in the spoken or silent dialogue between creator and viewer.

Two complete sets of Hermann Rorschach inkblot test plates, first published in 1921, are displayed in sequence. One set of ten images is shown right side up, the other set, upside down. Immediate interpretive conclusions can be reached by observing the startling dynamic shift in form and meaning of the twenty opposed images. Visitors are encouraged to anonymously jot down what they see and/or feel on a provided list. A report will be available to share findings from those who, sincerely or in jest, opt to participate.

Concurrently displayed artworks by late 19th century, early 20th century and contemporary Asian and American artists shed light on how abstract and oblique figurative and Surrealist imagery allows a willing viewer to tap into pragmatic and sensory thoughts, feelings and memories. What reads as positive or obscure to one person may be negative or concrete to another.

The exhibit attempts to demonstrate the inherently democratic nature of non-objective and Surrealist art and its influence on modern awareness. The real world and our psyches are neither horizontal nor vertical, nor are they aligned in pictorial perspective. These upside down, double-faced dynamically combined, random, contrasted, out-of-context images can evoke responses, feelings and revelations akin to those experienced in cinema, theater, advertising - with the use of subliminal images - literature and music. In this modern world, are we being ‘Rorschached’ on a daily basis? What do these abstract forms mean? You are invited to draw your own conclusions.

The Rorschach Inkblot Test is a method of psychological examination developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist and advocate of psychoanalysis. It is still used today by analysts to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functions of their patients. The test consists of ten standardized inkblots printed on uniformly sized cards. The patient is asked to list everything seen in each blot. Rorschach used a scoring system that highlighted whether the form, the perceived movement or the color of a blot influenced a response. He used the test as a window into the viewer’s perceptions rather than an evaluation of imagination.