Artist: Alice Wang
Exhibition title: We Are Extraterrestrial
Venue: Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles, US
Date: May 4 – August 3, 2024
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles
MONTEREY PARK, Calif. – The Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College proudly presents Alice Wang: We Are Extraterrestrial, opening May 4, 2024.
In her first solo museum exhibition in the United States, Alice Wang showcases recent prints and glass sculptures, alongside newly-commissioned large-scale ceramic sculptures, a film, and an artist book that reflect the artist’s deep curiosity for the space between the real and the imaginary. These works are the result of her immersive research trips to space analogs, or sites with similar conditions to extraterrestrial bodies in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and across Iceland and the Arctic.
“By putting myself through the physicality of traveling to these surreal and sublime landscapes, I aimed to shift my Earth-bound perspective, open up the threshold of my anthropocentric perception, and explore the unknown,” said Wang. “The physical boundary of the resulting work is not limited to its visible expression, and indulges our collective curiosity.”
Through sculpture, photography, and film, We Are Extraterrestrial engages the convergence of science and mystery, where the known encounters the unknown and where empirical observation confronts the limits of human comprehension. Within an immersive gallery experience, Wang’s objects serve as conduits for dialogue, inviting us to contemplate the vastness of the natural world and our own place within it.
Central to the exhibition lies Wang’s fascination with hexagonal shapes, drawing inspiration from natural geometric formations such as basalt columns found in unique volcanic sites around the world, as well as specific molecular structures such as carbon and serotonin. To help facilitate her ceramics production, Wang collaborated with the Art Department at East Los Angeles College, bringing together a small team of students, faculty, and fabricators to create a new suite of large-scale ceramic works that experiment with scale and perception, challenging the notion that the physical boundaries of art are confined to its visible expression.
In conversation with these hexagon columns, Wang also presents several glass pieces created in collaboration with Los Angeles stained glass studio, Judson Studios. Inspired by the liquid metal mercury, the glass sculptures are exceptionally lustrous, organic in form, and frozen in arrested motion. In contrast to the monolithic and eternal hexagon columns, glass appears fleeting, transitory, and dynamic.
Also on display is Wang’s Pyramids and Parabolas III, a structuralist film that captures footage from her solo expeditions over the last six years. Wang journeyed to Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Iceland, and the Arctic, seeking landscapes on Earth that resemble those from other planets. The film, underscored by a soundtrack from the musician Ciel, unfolds as a series of psychic states. It weaves together travelogue vignettes, personal anecdotes, and family history, presenting the body as an instrument for exploring both physical and psychological landscapes, aiming to extend beyond the limits of human comprehension.
Accompanying this visual and sonic journey is an artist’s book created in collaboration with anthropologist and writer Todd Meyers, and published by the independent publishing studio Sming Sming Books. This book features photos from Wang’s extensive travels, complemented by free verse, providing a tangible extension of the film’s exploration of otherworldly terrains.
The prints included in the exhibition are part of Wang’s ongoing sculptural practice of using meteorites, a metamorphic material with a past life in outer space. On each print, Wang has applied hand-gilded silver leaf to high-resolution scans of meteorite cross-sections. When moving around the works, depending on the lighting condition, colors change with the phenomenological effect of the silver, shapeshifting between the real space of the printed object, the indexical impression of the meteorite, and the illusionistic depiction of minerals.
“Normally when we encounter meteorites, they are quite small and behind glass in a science center,” said Wang. “I am trying to develop an intimacy with the materials, so that visitors can both relate aesthetically to these objects as well as try to investigate the critical language of these things.”
The opening of Alice Wang: We Are Extraterrestrial will be celebrated with a reception on Saturday, May 4, from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition will run through Aug. 3, 2024.
Generous support for this project is provided through a grant from the Mellon Foundation. Additional support provided by the Canada Council for the Arts and the LA County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan. All exhibitions at the Vincent Price Art Museum are underwritten by the Vincent Price Art Museum Foundation and East Los Angeles College.
About the Artist
Alice Wang received a B.Sc. in Computer Science and International Relations from the University of Toronto, a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and an MFA from New York University. She was a fellow at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, a Villa Aurora fellow in Berlin, and a grant recipient from the Canada Council for the Arts. Wang has presented in solo exhibitions at the UCCA Dune Art Museum, Beidaihe, China; Capsule Shanghai (2017, 2021); Human Resources, Los Angeles; and 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, among others. She has also presented work at the Hammer Museum, Galleria Continua, Para Site, Galerie Urs Meile, and the 14th Shanghai Biennale. Wang will be an artist-in-residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in December. She lives and works in New York.
About Vincent Price Art Museum
The Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College serves as a unique educational resource for the diverse audiences of the college and the community through the exhibition, interpretation, collection, and preservation of works in all media of the visual arts. VPAM provides an environment to encounter a range of aesthetic expressions that illuminate the depth and diversity of artwork produced by people of the world, both contemporary and past. By presenting thoughtful, innovative and culturally diverse exhibitions and by organizing cross-disciplinary programs on issues of historical, social, and cultural relevance, VPAM seeks to promote knowledge, inspire creative thinking, and deepen an understanding of and appreciation for the visual arts. Learn more at vpam.org.
About East Los Angeles College
East Los Angeles College (ELAC) is the largest of nine two-year community colleges within the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). More information about ELAC is available online at www.elac.edu. Follow ELAC on social media, Facebook @Eastlacollege, Twitter @Eastlacollege, and Instagram @ELACHuskies.
