The age of immersive art experiences is in its embryonic stage, a digital dawning that will only evolve as shows dedicated to The Masters tantalize audiences, NFTs create new revenue streams for artists and metaverses enable new frontiers in virtual reality. London-based illustrator Vince Fraser can be considered a pioneer in perfecting a blend of sight and sound while illuminating where the immersive path can lead with Ase: Afro Frequencies, a stunning Afro-Surrealist exhibit that runs through April 18 at Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art.
Fraser collaborated with spoken-word artist Ursula Rucker to create Ase for a show at Miami experiential gallery space Artechouse that ran from May until December. Less than two weeks after it closed in the Sunshine State it was installed at BGFA and ready for perusal in Las Vegas. Ase: (ah-shay), a philosophical belief held by the Yoruba people of West Africa, is drawn on to invoke power and change. The word itself can be translated as “as it shall be done,” while the wielders of the spiritual life force that cause change are considered alaase.
The alaase here are Fraser, Rucker and the Artechouse creatives who served as sound designers and function facilitators. The Vegas exhibit’s three main components include the Egungun series, which captures viewers’ images on video canvasses and grafts tribal African masks onto their faces. Egungun refers to a Yoruba masquerade or a masked figure, with facial disguises considered “doorways into concepts beyond the realm of the everyday” that represent ancestors, animals or spirits and are worn during celebrations and rituals.
Here, masks move and change size as participants learn to position themselves effectively in front of adjacent cameras. The result is in-the-moment intrigue that sparks interest in the meaning behind the masks. They scintillate with the observer’s movements, but not quite so astoundingly as in Afrotude, where depth cameras concoct a life-sized figure that mesmerizingly pulses and revolves to the beats in front of a kinetic floor-projection that serves as animated carpeting.
Rucker, familiar to fans of hip-hop group The Roots and one of the most talented poets of her generation, has poems connected to individual Enungan video canvasses but her voice truly ties the exhibit’s projection lounge together. The three-wall landscape of dazzling, morphing, uplifting surrealist imagery is drawn from African culture, contemporary urban life and a transcendental imagination. Even when the tribal drums compete with her verse, Rucker’s soothing voice punches through with alliterative mantras (“Peace … persecution … perseverance”).
The exhibit’s themes of the possibilities inherent to hope and rebirth, projecting the virtues of positive energy without slipping into symbolic platitudes, are indelibly impressed upon the visitor. Ase: Afro Frequencies garnered Best Exhibition honors in Time Out Miami’s Best of the City 2021 Awards. Its engagement at BGFA is a rare opportunity in Las Vegas to absorb the collaborative vision of a digital artist and a wordsmith, both world class, as they honor African culture while furthering excellence in their respective arts.
Bellagio, 702.693.7871
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