Foregrounds (1978)

8.6/10 • 13 min •

Overview

"FOREGROUNDS, like SAUGUS SERIES, is devoted almost entirely to carefully constructed spatial ambiguities. The most visceral of these prints a rotating boulder, occupying half of the screen, over a slow lateral pan across the desert (painted by Neon Park). A faint superimposition of leaves on top of the landscape has the effect of pushing its vista farther back in space. Correspondingly, the boulder bulges out of the picture-plane like a Cezanne apple. The effect is so strong that even when O'Neill begins to animate 'scratches' over the image, one's eye refuses to surrender the illusion of volume." - J. Hoberman, The Village Voice