Towards the Light

A discussion on the pleasure of aesthetics with the installation artist known for his large-scale sculptures that literally illuminate their environments and the NYU ArtLab director who studies the biological effects of art on the brain.

About the Speakers

Leo Villareal is best known for his large-scale light sculptures that can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Recent exhibitions include a survey show organized by the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA. He has also completed many site specific works including, Radiant Pathways, Rice University in Houston, Texas; Mulitverse, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC; Diagonal Grid, Borusan Center for Culture and Arts in Istanbul, Turkey; Stars, The Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York, and Hive, for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the Bleecker Street subway station in Manhattan; and the world’s largest LED light installation, The Bay Lights for the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. This past winter, Villareal had his fifth solo exhibition with New York Gallery, Sandra Gering Inc.

Edward A. Vessel is a director of the NYU ArtLab and is a research scientist at the Center for Brain Imaging at New York University. At the ArtLab he attempts to understand the basis for how people derive pleasure and inspiration from art forms, and how this may be related to learning, motivation and wellbeing. He uses behavioral and brain imaging techniques to study how the brain’s various perceptual and emotional systems integrate information to produce an aesthetic response when a person is “moved” by an experience.