The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College will devote all of its galleries to a retrospective of Fred Eversley, an artist renowned for his vivid cast resin works that activate a range of sensory phenomena. Trained as an aerospace engineer, Eversley creates sculptures that reflect, refract, and focus surrounding forms of energy—including light, motion, and sound—through the parabola, a shape that concentrates energy to a single focal point.
Eversley’s artistic practice emerged from the cross-pollination between art and science that was a defining feature of 1960s Southern California. With a curatorial team that includes art historians, materials experts, and physicists, Fred Eversley will offer an in-depth examination of the central role that scientific theories, concepts, and technologies played throughout the artist’s career. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue will also explore Eversley’s relationship to West Coast Minimalism, the Black Arts Movement, Light and Space, Finish Fetish, and other contemporary artistic affiliations.
This retrospective aims to be the most comprehensive gathering of the artist’s work to date, highlighting his signature lenses, airfoil pieces, hanging laminated sculptures, large-scale public pieces, and archival materials. The catalogue will be the first major monographic publication devoted to Eversley and will include contributions of original scholarship from art historians and scientists alike.
The exhibition at the Benton will be co-curated by Benton senior curator Rebecca McGrew and Getty Research Institute senior curator Glenn Phillips. Nicolas Orozco-Valdivia will serve as curatorial assistant. They are joined by a team of esteemed advisors, including Barry Barish, distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, and winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics; Dwight Whitaker, professor and chair of physics and astronomy at Pomona College; Rachel Rivenc, head of conservation and preservation at the Getty Research Institute; and Sharrissa Iqbal, art historian.
Presented in Fall 2024, the Fred Eversley exhibition and publication is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time initiative.
