O.C. Art Review : Sculpture Makes Sport at the Pond

ANAHEIM —  In the mid-’70s, a book called “Hidden Images” created a brief rage for anamorphic projections, images that looked weirdly distorted until you gazed at their reflections in a rolled-up sheet of shiny paper that made everything suddenly recognizable.

Once you get the hang of how anamorphosis works, it’s easy to see how an artist would enjoy both the challenge of creating the distortion and the in-joke of knowing it could be “corrected” with the flick of a mirror.

The three-artist team that created “The Anamorph”--the fountain-like sculpture unveiled on the southeast plaza of The Pond in Anaheim last week--finessed an equally neat trick.

Resurrecting a device that emphasizes the active role of the spectator in making sense of art, Richard Turner, Ann Preston and Michael Davis pay tribute to the symbiotic bond between spectator and performer or athlete.

If the work does have one major flaw--discussed below--it is undeniably creative and user-friendly, cheerfully responsive to lay audiences without pandering to mass taste. Considering that the art program for The Pond was instituted after all the design work was completed--thus limiting proper integration of art and architecture--”The Anamorph” is almost a model piece of its kind.

Generally attributed to Leonardo’s scientific inventiveness, anamorphosis became a pet device of now-obscure 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century artists. In “The Anamorph,” the stretched-out mosaic figures of ancient Greek athletes and dancing nymphs on the floor and sides of a shallow, 15-foot-wide basin are reflected in normal size on a central glass column.

Borrowed from ancient Greek vase paintings, the three athletes each hold an accouterment of their respective sports: discus, bow and hoop. True to ancient jock practice, these guys appear in the buff. It’s amusing how male nudity, such a tricky issue when it appears in contemporary art, becomes a non-issue when offered in the “high-art” guise of ancient Greece.

Besides adding the welcome presence of the other sex, the circle of (gowned) dancing nymphs conveys a sense of rhythmic celebration recalling the arena’s use as a concert venue as well as its primary function as a sports facility.

Although the art team calls these female figures--taken from images ringing an ancient Greek plate--”sea nymphs,” they actually may be free-spirited maenads, the “ravers” of their era--whose whirling dances celebrated the god of drink and revelry.

Of course, it’s not as if Ogden Entertainment Services, which operates the arena, is going to be bringing in an evening of Bacchanalian revelry (or a rave, for that matter) any time soon.

But that’s where artistic license comes in. Presumably only curmudgeonly art critics wish that the project description had gotten straight the difference between maenads and nymphs (nature spirits) and bothered to specify which ancient sources were used.

The artists play several other perceptual games in the piece, some of which work much better than others. On the concrete plaza surrounding the basin, a series of mirror-image silhouettes resembling Rorschach inkblot tests might amuse speculative ticket holders with time to kill.

The in-joke aspects of the piece are the double profiles of the artists displayed in granite medallions on the plaza. Amusingly emphasizing the other side of anamorphosis--the artists’ role in masterminding perceptual trickery--these nose-to-nose images make sense only if you stand with your back to the basin. (Hint: Turner is the one with the glasses.)

The disappointing feature of “The Anamorph” is, unfortunately, its most prominent: the abstract fiberglass form mounted on the glass column. According to the artists’ proposal, it represents a three-dimensional image of an inkblot, like the ones reproduced on the pavement.

The artists suggest the shape might resemble “the human figure in motion” or “bubbling water, frozen as it gushes upward.” But the fiberglass portion looks clunky and inappropriately utilitarian, like a marooned auto engine part or the kind of drawer-pull found in avocado-hued kitchens.

A better and simpler solution might have been to extend the anamorphic glass column--which reflects objects as super-skinny slivers--for the entire 20 feet of the piece. Obviously, some vertical device was necessary to give adequate scale to a sculpture just a few feet away from an arena as tall as a 15-story building.

To be sure, we’ve been spared the sight of a giant, stylized athlete in action, but no one would have expected such a cheesy cliche from these artists. Those who do like that sort of thing no doubt will be pleased by The Mighty Ducks’ eight-foot-tall bronze, “Wild Wing,” for the south entrance, to be unveiled in a private ceremony Friday.

At the dedication of “The Anamorph” on Thursday, many people wondered whether it would be used as a working fountain. The answer is no. Because of maintenance problems and the unpredictability of crowd behavior at The Pond’s diverse events, the art plan for the arena specifically bars works with water elements.