Gravity wins, Entropy rules 2024
Holographic hybrids by Al Razutis
Accompanying publication with contributions by Sidney Gordon and Catharine MacTavish
Opening Event 6pm - 9pm, Oct 26 – Feb 8, 2025
Featuring holographic assemblages made by Al Razutis in the 1970s and 80s, Gravity wins, Entropy rules presents a rare and critical opportunity for the public to encounter holographic art. Born in 1946, Al Razutis is an artist and educator who has spent fifty years dedicated to innovations in media such as early experimental film, broadcasting, holography and virtual reality. Between 1972 and 1977 Razutis leased a two-building site underneath the Granville St. Bridge where he established the first holographic art studio in Canada. Combining various found materials such as furniture, newspaper clippings, children’s toys and stray electrical bits together with dichromate and silver gelatin holograms, the little-known assemblages on display are peculiar and exciting works which blur the binary between the physical space of objects and the virtual space of images. The combination of passé second-hand objects against the strange futurism of the images reflects the tension inherent to the history of holography: a strikingly innovative, nearly magical, medium which despite its promise as the future of imaging, is today relegated to obscurity.
Gravity wins, Entropy rules 2024
Publication accompanying exhibition of the same name with contributions by Sidney Gordon and Catharine MacTavish
In Curator and Editor Felix Rapp’s introduction, he opens the conversation around the contemporary status of holography within the art world and society at large, alongside a candid description of his experience first meeting Al at his home on Saturna Island and being shown his collection of holographic works stored in this unlikely location. An essay titled “What is a Hologram?” by Catharine MacTavish, describes her time experimenting within the Visual Alchemy holographic studio formerly located under the Granville Street Bridge in Vancouver, and explores how holograms can confront us with the illusory and imaginal nature of existence. A titular essay by Al Razutis—in his signature writing style—discussing the roles of light, electromagnetic radiation, and fields of energy within holography, alongside storied historical accounts of several individual artworks. Finally, “Looking Through a Two-Way Lens: A reflection on ‘Vancouver’s’ lively underground cine-culture, 1960-present” written by Sidney Gordon (co-founder of local film screening collective XINEMA) discusses the success of Razutis’ experimental films and “no-barrier screenings” in the late 1960’s-70’s in Vancouver.
Editor: Felix Rapp
Co-Editor: Catherine de Montreuil
Design: Felix Rapp
Cover Image: Al Razutis / Catharine MacTavish
Printed by: Moniker Press / Gramma Publications Ltd
Bound by: Publication Studio Vancouver
Published by: UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness
114 pp
Edition of 150
ISBN 978-1-927394-41-0
Click here to purchase a copy
Publication accompanying exhibition of the same name with contributions by Sidney Gordon and Catharine MacTavish
In Curator and Editor Felix Rapp’s introduction, he opens the conversation around the contemporary status of holography within the art world and society at large, alongside a candid description of his experience first meeting Al at his home on Saturna Island and being shown his collection of holographic works stored in this unlikely location. An essay titled “What is a Hologram?” by Catharine MacTavish, describes her time experimenting within the Visual Alchemy holographic studio formerly located under the Granville Street Bridge in Vancouver, and explores how holograms can confront us with the illusory and imaginal nature of existence. A titular essay by Al Razutis—in his signature writing style—discussing the roles of light, electromagnetic radiation, and fields of energy within holography, alongside storied historical accounts of several individual artworks. Finally, “Looking Through a Two-Way Lens: A reflection on ‘Vancouver’s’ lively underground cine-culture, 1960-present” written by Sidney Gordon (co-founder of local film screening collective XINEMA) discusses the success of Razutis’ experimental films and “no-barrier screenings” in the late 1960’s-70’s in Vancouver.
Editor: Felix Rapp
Co-Editor: Catherine de Montreuil
Design: Felix Rapp
Cover Image: Al Razutis / Catharine MacTavish
Printed by: Moniker Press / Gramma Publications Ltd
Bound by: Publication Studio Vancouver
Published by: UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness
114 pp
Edition of 150
ISBN 978-1-927394-41-0
Click here to purchase a copy
