Stephen Dean

Stephen Dean works in a range of media, including video and installations and has long explored color as both pure phenomena and cultural signifier. His works in this exhibition are gorgeously physical manifestations of color in interaction with light, but there are always historical and populist narratives to be gleaned from the often utilitarian structures he so cannily re- purposes. Converting them into abstractions, into updated interpretations of Minimalist objects, his ladders suggest Judd with a nod to Flavin and maybe LeWitt, his postcard racks recall Duchamp’s bottle racks and his appealing, brilliantly reflective sculptural constructs, his Mnemotechnics, conjure up Tatlin’s corner counter-reliefs), colorized. Dean has been using modern dichroic glass in his work for quite some time, fascinated by the constant shifts in hue that it produces under different light conditions, its response mercurial and dazzling. A low-tech means of production, it returns enormously rich visual dividends. Determined by the position of the spectator in relationship to the object, by the angle of the light and the angle of viewing, the works are in flux, kinetic, performative, experienced as unpredictable patterns of colors that are temporarily glimpsed, painted on the walls and floors by transient light.

Lily Wei, Light3

The works in the series Prayer Mills enhance their readymade aspect by resorting to one of Duchamp's basic themes, that of the kinetics of works of art and their hypnotic, multisensory effect on the watcher; this theme first emerged with Bicycle Wheel (1913) and notably in the studio where, according to its "creator", this wheel mounted by its fork on a stool, was the subject of amused fascination when he set its upper part turning. Each of Dean's "prayer mills" is made up of sheets of dichroic glass, a material that was originally designed by NASA for the visors of its space suits, set on the different levels of a revolving postcard rack. The sheets that are used here are specially made to the artist's specifications, and he has been using them since his One to One (2000), a folding ladder with the spaces between the rungs filled with colored glass so that different effects could be obtained by folding and unfolding … The Prayer Mills are clearly the culmination of these various works and of their application of one of the properties of dichroic glass, which changes color according to both the light and the movements of the viewer —so that in fact the entire panel changes, as does its projection on its surroundings. The effect is maximized by a circular arrangement: the colors are diffracted onto the walls, floor and ceiling in a kind of festively chromatic referencing of Bryon Gysin's Dream Machine of 1960–62.

Eric de Chassey I Mutanti Villa Medici, Rome

Ladder descending a staircase. - 2014

Aluminum and dichroic glass, 30 ft.

Permanent installation

Rice Public Art

Rice University, Anderson - Clarke Center for Continuing Studies

Houston, TX

https://moody.rice.edu/art/stephen-dean

The Anderson-Clarke Center at Rice is home to the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, which serves more than 20,000 adult students at various points in their personal, professional, and academic lives. It is in this context of continuing education in which Franco-American artist Stephen Dean’s work, Ladder descending a staircase, is best understood. The 30-foot sculpture made of dichroic glass panels—built in the form of a ladder and designed to fill the Anderson-Clarke Center stairwell window—is cast by light at all times. Natural light filters through the glass during the day, projecting an array of colors onto the floors and walls. After dark, the work is lit so as to be visible both from within the building and from outdoors. The ladder, a symbol of upward movement and possibility, reflects the mission of the Glasscock School to serve as a conduit for personal and professional development and growth.

Color is the most crucial element of Dean’s work. In his sculpture, installations, works on paper, and video, the artist often uses color as a mechanism to alter spatial and formal relationships—and build new understandings in the process. Dean’s work investigates color as a substantive element in understanding experiences.