Translucid: Art within and throughout
On View: September 24, 2025 – February 8, 2026
What happens when artists work not with solid stone or heavy paint, but with air, light, and the illusion of space?
Translucid: Art within and throughout brings together striking works from the Neuberger’s permanent collection, including several never before on view. The artists use translucency not just as a material, but as a metaphor—inviting us to see into objects, through them, and even around them.
Fred Eversley’s large Untitled resin sculpture sets the tone for the show. It acts as a prism of color, transforming the outside world into a parabolic form that recalls a vision of space. It’s not just something to look at—it’s something to look through. John Safer’s mirrored cubes reshape the sky itself, while Feliciano Béjar’s magic-scopes multiply the surrounding world into kaleidoscopic views.
Works by Leroy Lamis and Lillian Florsheim layer geometric forms that refract and reflect with every step. Hans Haacke slows time with a single drifting bubble.
Several artists embed memory and material within their constructions. Luis Perelman’s cast resin works suspend lightbulbs like preserved sparks and transform Coca-Cola bottles into time capsules. Louise Nevelson surprises with a rare transparent form that’s just as bold as her signature black assemblages. Earlier pioneers—Theo van Doesburg, Victor Vasarely, and Francisco Sobrino—laid the groundwork for these optical experiments, transforming geometry, light, and space into something entirely new.
In Translucid, clarity is never static. The works are distinguished by their inner reality, engaging with geometry, color, movement, or time, as well as their interaction with the world around them. They shimmer, shift, and invite active looking, challenging us to see not just what is there, but what lies between: the surrounding space, neighboring objects, and one another, now visible through transparent forms.
Translucid: Art within and throughout is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, and curated by Patrice Giasson, the Alex Gordon Curator for the Art of the Americas. Generous support is provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art.