Petra Bachmaier & Sean Gallero
Exact Dutch Yellow 2022

Exact Dutch Yellow at the Chicago Cultural Center presents abstracted, atmospheric sculptural light installations that refuse to offer a singular prescription for how to view them. To stand in front of, or rather within, these works is to experience the phenomenon of color both optically and physically but with an awareness that whatever you experience will be unique and ineffable. At the heart of the exhibition, underscored by its title, is the tacit acknowledgment that for all of its visibility, for all its presence, color—or at least how we name, classify, and experience it—remains subjective if not outright illusive.

The Sky at the Time was Berlin Blue, 2022
The Sky at the Time was Berlin Blue transforms the gallery architecture into an inhabitable cyanometer. In 1789, the Swiss scientist and mountaineer Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799) invented a device called a cyanometer (or cyanomètre). A simple tool made to measure the blueness of the sky, it is essentially a circle of paper with gradients of Prussian blue, also known as Berlin Blue, that move from white to black in fifty-two distinct degrees of color. Saussure, along with subsequent scientifically minded explorers like Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), used the device to demonstrate that the color of the sky grows darker with increases in elevation. Prussian Blue was the first modern synthetic pigment accidentally created by Johann Jacob Diesbach in Berlin around 1706.

Dusky Blue, 2022
Robert Ridgway (1850 – 1929) was an American ornithologist and taxonomist, systematizing and developing descriptions of species that are still used today. In 1912 he published two books Color Standards and Color Nomenclature that systematized color names and included fifty-three colored printing plates articulating 1,115 individually named colors. Twenty – eight of these colors are described with “Dusky’‘ ranging from “Dusky Blue” through “Dusky Purplish Gray” to “Dusky Yellowish Green.” The glow of Dusky Blue attempts to evoke a sensation of a color of the sky at dusk.

Landscape of Perception, 2022
Using raw pigments, Landscape of Perception explores how color inclines towards one another. Composed of three hues, ochre, green, and ultramarine, this sculptural work is activated by LED lighting, which creates a cyclical visual flow between light and dark, and dramatically alters the optical understanding of color and perception.