ATC Lecture: Leo Villareal, Investigating the Medium of Light March 15, 2010

Leo Villareal will discuss the unique journey that has taken him from a childhood in West Texas, to frankenstinean experiments in the industrial wastelands of late 80's New Haven, to work in virtual reality at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. A summer internship at Interval Research in Palo Alto in 1994 brought Villareal to the west coast and introduced him to pioneers in the fields of technology and art. Experiences in the Black Rock Desert shifted his practice completely, revealing to the artist the power and potency of small amounts of information and introducing him to his primary medium, sequenced light. Villareal continues to bring the inanimate to life and find beauty in simple things.

In this talk, Villareal questions the constant race for more megapixels and higher resolution we find ourselves in, asking: Is more better? What strategies can be used to repurpose media technologies? What happens when you add computation to minimalism and abstraction?

Biography:
Leo Villareal's light sculptures and installations have been presented at museums and institutions in the United States and abroad. His work was included in Visual Music, an historical survey exhibition organized by the Hirshorn Museum in Washington DC and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Villareal's work is part of the permanent collection of major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. The San Jose Museum is currently organizing a traveling survey exhibition and catalog to be presented in 2010. Villareal attended Yale University where he studied installation sculpture and went on to receive his Master's Degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. Villareal is represented by galleries in New York, Washington, and Madrid and currently lives in New York.

This lecture is co-presented with the San Jose Museum of Art.

Official Website: http://atc.berkeley.edu