Dream House Part V: Outer Space, Andrea Dezsö, and "Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly"

"The imaginary lunar landscapes reference the Apollo 13 expedition, which never actually made a landing on the Moon.  'Houston we have a problem' was uttered during the mission and continues to be a magically compelling turn of phrase.  What captured my imagination is how not being able to go somewhere physically opens the possibility of epic mental Odysseys, and how we can stuff empty space full with rich imaginary worlds, then move in."

     ---Andrea Dezsö (b. 1968), "Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly," Exhibition Pamphlet, Rice Gallery (2010)

In "Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly" now on exhibition at Rice Gallery in Houston, Romanian-born artist Andrea Dezsö creates an enchanting dream world inspired by space travel.  As Dezsö explains, as a child growing up in Communist Romania without a passport, travel was an impossibility. The space missions of the 1960s and 1970s offered her the vicarious pleasure of the odyssey, catalyzing her artistic vision of a whimsical other-world, untethered by the limitations of reality.  

Known for her "tunnel books,"  Dezsö translates this smaller scale media form into the larger space of Rice gallery.  Through small and odd-shaped windows placed at different heights, we gaze into multi-layered laser-cut tunnels up to six feet in length extending back into the gallery space.  Against the softly glowing cerulean and sea-green landscape, we see the silhouettes of those who populate this space---mythical figures that intermingle the features of humans, insects, and plant-life. Dancing on the edges of these tunnels, the joyous poses of Dezso's surreal characters welcome us and make these vistas seem less remote and less austere than most depictions of outer space. 

Along these lines, I am most taken with Dezsö's characterization of her work as a domestic endeavor.  Perhaps the allure of this space is not visitability but inhabitability--the desire to "move in" as she expresses it.  Dezsö, while new to this art form, thus grasps the inherent play between interiority and exteriority that large scale installation invites.  The mind's eye creates both voyage and destination, but the medium of art turns this imaginative world into a physical reality.  Much as Dezsö longed to travel, we desire to cross the glass window of the gallery to occupy this world. Yet although this is an impossibility, her exhibit also reminds us of the possibilities for creating the worlds that we wish to inhabit.  Dream houses are precisely that--the architecture of the imagination.

On exhibit at Rice Gallery April 8th through August 8th.