Something funny’s going on in the Woolworth’s window

by Gwendolen Groocock

As the light fades at dusk, watch the windows of the out-of-business Woolworth's in Riverhead. Be prepared for a shock; others who have looked have stared in fascination - or run screaming down the street! The venerable old Main Street building is infested with flying, translucent, multilegged creatures. They look like a mass-hatching of larval alien life forms, and they're very much alive. But watch closely -are they playing? They're kinda cute.
It's a performance piece called "Homecoming" by artist Ted Victoria. An art professor at Kean University with a master's from Rutgers, both in New Jersey, his work has received acclaim in Sweden, France, Japan, England and around the U.S. “Homecoming”is aptly named.

Mr. Victoria grew up in Polish Town and is a 1960 graduate of Riverhead High School, where all he did, he claims, was play football and learn everthing he could from his art teacher, Josephine Bruno. "I used to hang out in front of Woolworth's," he said. "I love that building. I ate my first slice of pizza there."

As for the critters, they're tiny marine brine shrimp cleverly projected onto a translucent screen. Scientifically, Artemia salina is one of the earth's oldest existing species, appearing over 100 million years ago. Their eggs stay in suspended animation -cryptobiosis -for up to 50 years' until environmental conditions are hospitable to life. They're the "sea monkeys " of old comic book fame – just add water and they come to life !
Mr .Victoria is a classically trained, Mondrian- influenced painter /sculptor whose work now has more in common with photography. He's chased light, lens and illusion since finding inspiration on the side of a box of macaroni-and-cheese.

"It described a children's science project that used a lens and wax paper to project images," he said. "It flipped me out. I'd heard of camera obscura techniques before, but this totally captivated me."

Along with silhouetted works like "Homecoming," he also creates real life "photographs" using a different type of optical trickery. They hang on the wall like a regular piece of art, but the image is a full-color , highly detailed projection of a slowly moving real object contained inside the piece itself. The observer sees a slightly different scene each time.

"It's as close as you can get to real photography, which I'm actually not very good at," he said. "The images have this quality ...there's no grain, the color is absolutely real; exactly the way we perceive things."
One of Mr .Victoria's favorite works shows the interior of a bird- house from his New Suffolk garden. The birds had incorporated foil, cellophane and cigarette wrappers into their nest. "It's a view into a precious place, and it's the simplest piece in the whole show," he said.

By contrast, designer Christian Lacroix, enchanted with Mr. Victoria's work, commissioned a creation that would make Edina Monsoon weep with joy. The eight-foot triptych of projected fabric, jewelry , chandeliers and sumptuous odds and ends heralded a new fragrance by the designer. The piece flew to Moscow, Rome, and, once, from Paris to New York and back in one day for a two-hour luncheon. It's now at the new Hennessy exhibition center in Cognac, France.

Artistically, Mr. Victoria said his work all stems from the traditional still life he first learned to paint. It’s still very much like painting for me," he said. "It's instinctive and creative, and changes as I go along. I'm just not using any paint."

And the brine shrimp still fascinate him as subjects; they follow the light, spin and frolic, and even make babies. The first time they were projected onto his SoHo studio windows in 1996, they became the talk of the town. "Sometimes a hundred people gathered to watch. They'd think it's an aquarium and tap on the windows. But there was that one lady who really did scream and run away," he chuckled.
For the "Homecoming" display, the Woolworth's building is on loan from owner Sheldon Gordon. Mr . Victoria chose it not just because it's vacant and directly opposite the East End Arts Council, but because of its huge windows. "The bigger the better ," he said. Mr .Victoria's indoor works, and Mr .Victoria himself, will be at the juried art show "CONTACT! Art and Science " at the East End Arts Council Gallery across the street from "Homecoming" at Woolworth's. The show opens with a reception Friday, Feb. 7, from 5 to 8 p.m.

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