Featured Review: Jill Downen: (dis)Mantle

Featured Review: Jill Downen: (dis)Mantle Local artist and recent Guggenheim recipient Jill Downen has transformed the former chapel inside the Luminary Center for the Arts by way of an all-over application of white plaster. In removing doorways, outlets and other visual excesses, Downen exposes its subtle asymmetries. A plumb line dangling from the ceiling emphasizes the space's subtle but numerous misalignments — and the vertiginous seasickness they combine to produce. Here Downen has taken her exploration of the relationship between body and architectural space to its most metaphysical, breaching the realm where faith and its attendant absolutes collide with human flaws and limitations. With all electrical fixtures spackled over, natural light is all that's left to illuminate the room, and the effect is transcendent: Transfixed, the viewer is made to feel peacefully contemplative and physically uneasy at the same time. Through October 30 at the Luminary Center for the Arts, 4900 Reber Place; 314-807-5984 or www.theluminaryarts.com. Hours: noon-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat.

Richard Sprengeler

Jill Downen's (dis)Mantle, installation view.

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More About

• Jill Downen
• Luminary Center for the Arts

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