Edna Andrade, Optical Paintings, installation view (2003)Edna Andrade, Optical Paintings, installation view (2003)Edna Andrade, Optical Paintings, installation view (2003)Edna Andrade, Optical Paintings, installation view (2003)

Influenced by modernists Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, and Josef Albers—and concerned more with the psychology of perception than with expression or narrative—Edna Andrade observed, “With the new art, paintings are no longer to be looked at—or into… They possess positive action.”

Andrade’s works create an active, bodily, and visual engagement with their viewers, presaging our own technological Zeitgeist’s fascination with data, repetition, and images as built perceptual machines.
Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson, *Easternsports*, installation view at fall opening celebration (2014)

Alex Da Corte and Jayson Musson, *Easternsports*, 2014, installation view at fall opening celebration. Photo: Constance Mensh.

Easternsports explores these contemporary preoccupations, offering multisensory, active experiences to those entering the orange-scented, shag carpeted video installation.

Alex Da Corte, who designed the installation’s sets, frequently drew upon the boldly simple vocabulary of shape, pattern, and color established in Andrade’s optical paintings. Jayson Musson’s script, visible as subtitles superimposed onto each scene, critically riffs on our obsessions with technology, imagery, and the pursuit of meaning.

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Easternsports was made possible by the generous support of the Edna W. Andrade Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation.

Learn more about Andrade’s 2003 ICA retrospective, curated by Debra Bricker Balken, and buy the gorgeous Optical Paintings catalogue.