Doug Wheeler

rotational horizon work . 2014

+ David Zwirner

An avid flyer since childhood and an eventual pilot himself, Wheeler has long been fascinated by the illusory quality of landscape as glimpsed from the vantage point of an airplane.
Approaching an ever-receding horizon, passengers are able to watch the terrain shift rapidly as though it were a stage set laid out flatly in front of them when, in actuality, their flight path traces out the contours of the globe. By mimicking the sensation of the earth’s rotational pull and curvature, Wheeler alters the traditionally static viewing experience of a work of art, thereby destabilizing our innate sense of equilibrium and imparting the feeling of moving with the earth towards an unreachable horizon.
David Zwirner