Tony Oursler: Colors (1995) / The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse

Tony Oursler‘s Colors (1995) is a pioneering video installation in the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District. This work consists of a video projector that projects a face onto a mattress (or fabric/doll-like form), creating an animated, talking figure. The video is in color with sound, running approximately 1 hour 2 minutes and 50 seconds (1:02:50).

It features Oursler’s signature style: a disembodied, expressive face (often based on the artist’s own or abstracted characters) projected onto soft, sculptural surfaces. The face appears to speak, emote, and interact in a hypnotic, psychological way—muttering, singing, or delivering fragmented narratives that explore themes of identity, media saturation, technology’s influence on the human psyche, and the blurring of real vs. projected “self.”

Oursler, an American artist born in 1957, has been a key figure in video art since the 1970s–80s. His works often use small LCD projectors to “bring to life” soft, doll-like or pillow forms, turning them into uncanny, animated beings that comment on consumerism, surveillance, and emotional disconnection in a media-driven world. The piece is part of the private but publicly accessible Margulies Collection, founded by collector Martin Z. Margulies. It has been shown in past exhibitions at the Warehouse (a 50,000 sq ft retro-fitted space), including in anniversary shows and focused installations. We have filmed the artwork on the occasion of Miami Art Week 2025.

Tony Oursler: Colors (1995) / The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. Miami (USA), December 1, 2025.

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