In the House of the Trembling Eye is the culmination of a period of research and collaboration led by artist Allison Katz (b. 1980) in response to the museum’s invitation to curate an exhibition of artworks from personal art collections in Aspen. Prompted by the creative constraints of this premise, Katz takes on and fluidly blends distinctions between the role of artist, curator, writer, researcher, and designer, bringing to life a group exhibition that endeavors to expand our understanding of paintings, and how they may relate to one another. Marking the Aspen Art Museum’s 45th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of its Shigeru Ban-designed building, In the House of the Trembling Eye instigates formal and poetic affinities among over one hundred artworks and objects in varied styles from different epochs, celebrating the inexhaustible capacity of painting to generate new conversations across time. Katz’s works, both new and recent, are presented alongside artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries as well as a series of fresco fragments from Pompeii. The exhibition unfolds across nine thematic sections, from the upper to the lower levels of the Museum, building upon the architectural logic of the domus (“house”) found in the ancient, preserved city of Pompeii. The galleries echo methods of choreographing one’s gaze through spatial features, and provide a reinterpretation of domestic space that reflects upon public and private experiences of art, and the role of the museum. Calling upon a multitude of references—from the aspen tree with its quivering leaves and eyes that appear to emerge from its bark, to Edouard Glissant’s cultural philosophy of tremblement — the exhibition’s title exemplifies Katz’s distinctive approach to citation and word association as well as her fascination with naming. In her works, the artist frequently weaves the verbal and visual into complex yet humorous inquiries that defy conventional hierarchies of origin, meaning, and purpose.
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