2003
The Laboratory of Sleep, 1998
Water, steel and sand; dimensions variable
Using cast-offs from everyday life as his primary material resource, Michael C. McMillen has been making large-scale constructed environments, mixed-media sculptures and installations since the early 1970s (he earned his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles). Born in Los Angeles in 1946, McMillen began his career in the film industry, building props and creating special effects for movies such as Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like films, McMillen's fastidiously constructed works function as portals into other worlds, allowing us to self-consciously explore our relationship to time, place and narrative.
One of McMillen's most beloved and best-known works is "The Central Meridian" (1981), (also known as "The Garage"), which is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This life-sized simulacrum of a cluttered 1950s era garage functions something like a time machine or a time capsule, transporting viewers to another era replete with musty odors, dusty surfaces and an idiosyncratic collection of objects. More recently, McMillen has been concerned with the relationship between time, change and illusion. In the tradition of California assemblage, he combines objects in surrealistic ways that invite associative, metaphorical reads rather than specific histories or narratives.
