One Work: Max Lofano

Ray, 2020, installation, Art Produce Gallery, San Diego.

[Image description: An outside view of a street-front gallery with glass doors on the right and a large window on the left. A thick mass of glowing lines appears to beam out from the back of the darkened gallery and attach to the window.]

With twine, suction cups and light, Max Lofano created Ray, a site- and time-specific installation in a window on a normally busy stretch of San Diego’s University Avenue in December of 2020. The suction cups clung to the glass in the shape of an ellipse, while the individual strands of twine attached to them shot back to a central vanishing point on the opposing wall of the space. The effect, only visible at night, was like perceiving the speed of light through a pane of glass, partitioned from the viewer like every other potential moment of connection in 2020. 

Passersby unaware that this was an art gallery may have wondered if what they saw was a trick of their peripheral vision, or maybe something otherworldly. This thought is my favorite thing about the artwork: people had the chance to wander past and feel what a lightyear looks like. In what has felt like the heaviest, slowest year, a cosmic phenomenon could be created, manipulated, and given to the viewer.

Lofano approached this artwork with a guiding notion that there are endless possibilities within everyday materials, but also advantages to setting limitations. He could only be at the space after he finished work at 5PM. Because those days in December were the shortest of the year, the completed work was meant to be viewed in the dark, under the same conditions as when he was making it. All the same, the presence of this piece was in the gallery’s artificial lighting, the way the strings became imperceptible as they faded into the void of the room they inhabited. Rather than simply an object or sculpture, the artwork was a moment outside of the unfortunate realities of the past year. Ray’s presence was striking but unimposing, like a portal to something much larger, yet at a manageable scale one could easily gain access to. 

When thinking of Ray, I recall an evening this past summer during the yearly Perseid Meteor Showers. I had not taken the time to plan an optimal viewing setup, so I just drove a bit east to Mount Helix, where I thought there would be less light pollution. It was packed with others who had the same idea. Though the longing to connect and experience moments with other humans has defined this year for myself and many others, there are certain things I still want to have to myself. I continued my search for darkness and quiet, driving until those were the defining characteristics of the landscape. Watching streams of light travel across the black sky, I was reminded of what I once learned about scale: the Earth and other planets in this solar system we inhabit become a speck of dust in Space at 10^20 meters away from where we stand. My body becomes a speck of dust on Earth at 10^2 . Just as with the meteor shower, Ray prompted me to consider how big the “big” things are, how scale is something we can only comprehend in a limited way. Like viewing a celestial event, this meditative work was best experienced walking alone at night, without an appointment or an audience.

— Jacqueline Marino, arts organizer

Ray, 2020, installation, Art Produce Gallery, San Diego.

[Image description: A view looking at the installation from the left of the gallery front.]

Ray, 2020, installation, Art Produce Gallery, San Diego.

[Image description: A view from inside the gallery looking directly at the installation from the side. The right side of the gallery is darkened, and white lines run horizontally toward the glass wall on the left, where they are illuminated by light.]

Ray, 2020, installation, Art Produce Gallery, San Diego.

[Image description: A view of the installation from the back of the gallery. White lines run horizontally from the left of the image and intersect with the glass wall.]

Ray, 2020, installation (detail), Art Produce Gallery, San Diego.

[Image description: White lines on a black background. The lines all emerge from a central point and seem to come toward the viewer. Six of the lines attach to small, transparent suction cups.]