WASHINGTON, DC.- Mounting six sculptural works in unexpected interior and exterior spaces, Bernardi Roig challenges visitors perception and experience in NO/Escape, on view beginning October 25. His project addresses the existential dualities of entrapment and liberation, blinding and illumination, absence and presence. NO/Escape is part of the Phillips’s ongoing Intersections series that highlights contemporary art and artists in conversation with the museum’s permanent collection, history, and architecture.

In his project, Roig (b. 1965, Mallorca, Spain) draws parallels between his works and Honoré Daumier’s lithographs from the mid-19th century, both of which offer poignant social commentary. His work expresses the anxiety, desperation, and loss of individuality in contemporary society, one that he sees as overrun by mass-produced, widely available imagery.

“Today we are living in an atmosphere saturated with images, but the experience that they produce has a low intensity,” the artist says. “Now it is ever more difficult to give meaning to an image. We are subjected to light, a light that dissolves the outlines of things, a white light within which everything fluctuates.”

Typical of the artist’s work are the cruel-looking white plaster figures cast from real people, often cornered or crushed against walls or twisting in pain. By including the element of light—whether a single light bulb, neon tubes, or dozens of cascading fluorescent lights—his work blends minimalist forms with highly charged expressions of anxiety and loneliness. For Roig, his figures’ passive acceptance of the fluorescent light becomes a metaphor for the blinding, confining effect of overstimulation. These figures, including The Man of the Light (2005) and Herr Mauroner (2008), strategically placed in and around the museum, invite a dialogue on the multiple identities of the contemporary man.

In addition to the preexisting figurative sculptures, Roig created White Cage specifically for the Phillips, for the corner of 21st and Q Streets. With its bent bars and single hanging neon light, the cage functions as a place of emptiness—recalling Harry Houdini’s early 20th century sensational escape acts—and provoking viewers to think about imprisonment and escape.

Inaugurated in 2009, Intersections is a series of contemporary art projects that explores—as the title suggests—the intriguing intersections between old and new traditions, modern and contemporary art practices, and museum spaces and artistic interventions. Whether engaging with the permanent collection or diverse spaces in the museum, the projects suggest new relationships with their own surprises. Previous Intersections artists include Jeanne Silverthorne (2013), Xavier Veilhan (2012), A. Balasubramaniam (2011), Jae Ko (2010), Linn Myers (2010), and Jennifer Wen Ma (2009).