Denuded Lens by Roxy Paine // Life-size Airport Security Checkpoint Made From Timber.

Checkpoint, 2014, Maple, aluminium, fluorescent light bulbs, acrylic prismatic light diffusers, 14′ x 26′ 11″ x 18’7 1/2″. Photo by Jason Wyche.

Some people. Seriously. Who wakes up in the morning and thinks – “I know what I’ll do today! I’m going to recreate an airport security checkpoint in. One to one scale. From timber. Ripper mate.” Actually, I’m pretty sure that American artist Roxy Paine‘s thought process was a lot more sophisticated than that, but you know what I’m sayin’.

This installation took place at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, where ‘Checkpoint’ was the main attraction. Shown alongside timber sculptures of mechanical objects, ‘Checkpoint’ is a familiar and banal scene taken to a surreal place by being constructed entirely out of maple, supported by an aluminium structure, and rendered in the smallest super accurate detail. The scene is complete with X-ray machinery, conveyors, plastic bins, even a pair of trainer, all replicated in timber. Adding to the trippiness of this installation is the fact that the entire scene is rendered in perspective: objects get smaller toward the back, right angles are skewed so that the whole illusion seems to exist between two and three dimensions, inducing a dreamy, slightly dizzying sensation.

As a complement to this large-scale installation, Paine presented examples of his timber sculptures, hybrid machine-like objects that suggest the modern day markers of labor, production, consumption and measured control. As the exhibition title suggested, when considered together, the works in ‘Denuded Lens’ proposed fresh ways for viewing our current environment, prompting us to see the spaces we occupy in a whole new light. Ten points from me.

Scrutiny, 2o14, Maple, Table: 33″ x 72 1/2 x 38″, Telescope and Tripod: 58 1/2″ x 40 x 26″, Camera: 6″ x 10 1/2″ x 6″. Photo by Jason Wyche.

Scrutiny, 2014 & Machine of Indeterminacy, 2014. Photo by Jason Wyche.

Scrutiny, 2o14, Maple, Table: 33″ x 72 1/2 x 38″, Telescope and Tripod: 58 1/2″ x 40 x 26″, Camera: 6″ x 10 1/2″ x 6″. Photo by Jason Wyche.

Speech Impediment, 2014 & Machine of Indeterminacy, 2014. Photo by Jason Wyche.

(Images courtesy of Roxy Paine. Photography by Jason Wyche.)

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