Perceptual Shifts features photographs from Santa Barbara Museum of Art's collection, spanning from analog and digital eras. The photographs on display show everyday sites and iconic landscapes with extreme detail, blurred focus, or experimental techniques. Mundane or well-known locations become strange or unrecognizable. We are asked to make sense of these mysterious images, only to find ourselves stymied. The artists in this exhibition upset assumptions about photography: more detail does not always mean more clarity, and sometimes seeing is not believing. Perceptual Shifts shows us photography’s potential for perceptual shifts—for deviation from conventional seeing—can help us better understand how variable and uncertain our vision and photography can be. Chris McCaw's Sunburned GSP #202 (SF Bay/expanding) (2008) joined SBMA's collection in 2008 and will on view in the exhibition.
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