In the House of the Trembling Eye is an expansive group exhibition staged by the London-based artist Allison Katz across the entirety of the Aspen Art Museum, organized in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. Bringing together over one hundred artworks and objects in varied styles from different epochs, this exhibition brings to the fore unexpected affinities, celebrating the inexhaustible capacity of painting to generate new conversations across time.
For over a decade, Katz has investigated the ways in which aesthetic practices link and absorb personal narrative, commodity culture, information systems, and art history. Her diverse, often humorously self-aware imagery traverses painting, posters, ceramics, and installations. It is through the act of revisiting and transforming her own motifs that the artist creates a language and lineage from one work to another.
Invited to bring to life an exhibition incorporating works from personal art collections in and around Aspen, Katz approached both curation and display as extensions of the act of painting itself. In the House of the Trembling Eyepresents her works, both new and recent, alongside artworks by over fifty artists as well as a series of fragments of frescoes from Pompeii. This exhibition is the first in North America to unite contemporary art with these ancient fresco fragments, many of which have never previously traveled to the United States.