GMAC project space is announcing its first exhibition, Tony DeLap: The Geometry Of Illusion, which will open to the public on December 9th. The exhibition  showcases four works made by the artist between 1987-1991 from the private collection of George Frederick Mead Merck. 

Tony DeLap (1927-2019) is a pioneer of West Coast minimalism and known for his abstract works utilizing geometry, illusionist techniques and meticulous craftsmanship. DeLap was a mentor to some of California’s most important artists, including Bruce Nauman, James Turrell and John McCracken, who all studied with him. The exhibit includes four paintings made between 1987-1991, a period acknowledged by experts, such as art historian Claudine Humblet, as the period where DeLap reconciled his approach to painting with his earlier sculptural practice. Humblet says: ‘’Between 1987 and 1991, DeLap experimented with other solutions in which his love of improvisation continued unabated. This new more ‘‘constructivist’’ phase advanced his ambition to install sculptural vigor into the line.’’ She goes on to further specify DeLap’s particular use of geometry as ‘’purist and inventive, precise and sensuous at the same time’’ creating a new ‘’mixed art, between sculpture and painting.’’ 

DeLap comments on his own fascination with geometry and illusion saying “I like boxes that make things appear and disappear. I try to give my work some of that quality.’’ This comment also directly underscores the artist’s deep interest in magic, borrowing illusionistic techniques in his art practice from magicians and titling many of his works after magic tricks, including the four works featured in this show. In observing the upper section of Perplexity (1988) from an angle, one can easily think of a deck of cards fanned across a table. Similarly, the shadows created by the edges  of Perplexity (1988) and The Stately Ghost (1987) create a preternatural sense of volume and space. Artist Gene Cooper observed the relationship between minimalism, DeLap’s art and magic, commenting: ‘’illusion is achieved through the most minimal means in both DeLap’s art and in the ‘tricks’ in a large number of magicians…such conjurers limit their equipment to a few basic kinds (e.g. coins, cards, balls, etc.), and in a refined manner manipulate them with only the necessary gestural movements.’’