Illusion: The Magic of Motion

The Museum of Photographic Arts makes learning visual through photography and film. Starting February 11, MOPA visitors will get to fool the eye at Illusion: The Magic of Motion. Families are encouraged to join in on the fun by recreating motion with the photographic arts. By using hands-on devices -- phenakistiscopes, thaumatropes or zoetropes -- visitors will explore ways that photography captures movement.

Financial support for Illusion: the Magic of Motion is provided by the City of San Diego, the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, and the Gardner Bilingual Fund.

People will see how the earlier works and today's contemporary art shape how we see motion in stills and video. At Illusion, families will learn how artists have been using photography to simulate movement-- going from stills to cinema and beyond.

Artists in the show include historic photographers Eadweard J. Muybridge, Berenice Abbot, Phillip Leonian, and Harold “Doc” Edgerton, and contemporary photographers Ori Gersht, Eric Dyer, and Luis González Palma.