University of Colorado at Boulder
Visual Arts Complex

Appositio
Andrew Ginzel and Kristen Jones; New York, New York
Budget; $102,800
To be installed Summer 2010
This complex will house the College of Art and the Art Museum. The 170,000 gross sq. ft. building will be a LEED certified building.

Appositio will be an integrated series of elements questioning the nature of perception. Embracing the duality of the University of Colorado – Boulder’s new Visual Arts Complex, the project aims to create a dynamic situation for perceptual exploration within the VAC Corridor, as a threshold, gateway and commons for the academic community and public. The work’s title is a play upon the act of examination by question and answer, as well the condition of being in close contact, juxtaposition and parallelism – hence focus. The primacy of light as the foundation of perception will be emphasized and then reinforced with sound.

At the southern perimeter of the VAC, a gilt disc atop a tall gnomon will catch the passing sunlight, casting an omniscient shadow across the plaza. Suspended from the gnomon’s apex, a fine cable will draw a great catenary arc due north to a parallel, sister gnomon. Like an antenna for the unseen, the catenary arcwill act as a thread of continuity running through the Complex.

Paced at logarithmic intervals along the catenary arc, pairs of small, double-ring ‘bells’ will cast their shadow onto inlaid bronze markers on the plaza surface below, each corresponding to the sun’s transition throughout the seasons.
Atop the VAC Bridge that links Museum with School, a pair of double-sided convex mirrors will reflect the sky and Boulder landscape. At each moment in the day, the northern and southern skies appear very different. The mirrors will reflect the sky behind the viewer, placing the brightness of the southern sky as an image upon the canvas of the northern sky. From the northern approach, the darker nature of the northern sky will be set upon the canvas of the brighter southern sky, challenging the viewer to witness and consider the dual perspectives simultaneously.

Echoing the circular form and wide scope of vision articulated in the convex mirrors above, a set of large, double brass rings will be suspended from the center of the bridge, providing an eye for the catenary cable that traverses the corridor. In a translation of elements (solid above and empty below), the rings will embody a sense of potential, gently tolling in the wind and inviting those passing below to reach up and sound them.
Set into the plaza below the connecting bridge, a large, inlaid eye built of the campus vernacular sandstone will link the two buildings, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between School and Museum. Comprised of the ubiquitous local material repeated throughout the University of Colorado – Boulder campus, the eye will suggest a renewed and perpetual endeavor to perceive and comprehend all that surrounds us.

Appositio is intended to create a dynamic situation through the juxtaposition of related elements exploring perception and time. Framing reality as a series of relative points of observation, the work will present the viewer with a unified set of instruments for analysis and comprehension of the surrounding world, encouraging the act of visual inquiry and magnifying the sense of place and present. The work will be installed by June 2010.