Shana Lutker’s Bizarre ‘Illusion’

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Go to the Langson Library and sit down at a computer. Use the online card catalog to find between two and six book titles with a word in common (e.g. ‘Killers of the Dream,’ ‘The Dream That Will Not Die,’ ‘Hold the Dream,’ ‘The Glory and the Dream’ and ‘Dreams Are Not Enough’). Retrieve these books and set them on a table. Repeat 10 times.
You have now recreated ‘Sentences From the ‘Matters of Civilization Collection,” one-third of Shana Lutker’s exhibit ‘The Future of an Illusion,’ on display at UC Irvine’s Room Gallery until Feb. 10.
To recreate ‘Selected Full Page Advertisements From the New York Times, 2004,’ you would have to read the New York Times for a year, occasionally cutting out full-page advertisements of a vaguely political nature. At the end of the year, have them bound in a book. For good measure, choose a few phrases (seemingly at random), enlarge them in red ink and hang the enlargements on a wall.
Finally, dig through a dumpster, looking for items like Styrofoam packing peanuts and cardboard six-pack beer holders. Paint them white or black, photograph them against a plain white background and hang the photos on another wall.
You’re actually fudging a little here with ‘Photographs From the ‘Temporary Containers and Support Structures Series.” Lutker apparently made sculptures representing such found objects and photographed the sculptures. However, with neither the original nor the imitation trash on display, no one is able to tell the difference, anyway.
(We are spared seeing the entirety of the ‘Peanut’ series

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