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Alan Rath
Watcher II, 1999
Aluminum, custom electronics, acrylic,
two cathode-ray tubes
30 x 33 x 15 inches
Gift of the Curator's Circle
1999.030

Alan Rath's Watcher II, a sculpture with two electronic eyes, is the second in a series the artist calls "eyeballs on the wall." Rath's Watchers feature wall-mounted monitors showing pairs of eyes that open and shut and move up and down and side to side. To make these works, the artist selected still images from his videotapes of a model, then produced animated digital images on monitors that create the movement of the eyes, thereby imbuing the sculpture with human qualities. In the Watcher sculptures, Rath wanted to reverse the usual process of looking
at art. Knowing that the viewer always "looks at the artwork," Rath wanted an artwork that
"looks at the viewer."