In The Hall Of The Sad King
New York City | 2015
The walls of the
Westbeth Gallery in NYC’s West Village were transformed into a gloomy, displaced, and forlorn Feudal era portrait gallery, as part of Optical Animal’s contribution to a 4-week-long group video art exhibition called MediaLounge.
The exhibit, which was a collaboration between Optical Animal and artist
Michael Burris Johnson, consisted of 5 portraits: The Astronomer, the Alchemist, The Fool, The Earle, and The Sad King.
Optical Animal worked with makeup artists
Ricky Vitus,
Evan Hedges, and
Libby Rose to bring the characters to life.
The mysterious, sad, and at times oblique collection was said to have been lost for centuries, before being uncovered by an overzealous collector with an uncomfortable tendency for castle plundering, ultimately making its way back to New York to be painstakingly restored just in time for the show.
