In Losing Ourselves Together, Paige Rozanski reflects on Bobby Anspach’s artistic journey, the development of his Place for Continuous Eye Contact sculptures, and his belief in art’s capacity to transform perception, foster connection, and create moments of profound awareness.

Artist Bobby Anspach had a steadfast vision that guided his artistic practice. He firmly believed that his artwork could be used as a tool to enlighten others and bring awareness to what he considered to be the pressing issue of our lifetime — the destruction, degradation and disregard for the planet we all call home. This concern for the state of the world informed his creative journey and led to the development of his sculptures — or “eye machines” — which he called Place for Continuous Eye Contact. Anspach believed in the power of art to invoke a transformative experience that would open people’s eyes to the world around them and to each other. He wanted people to feel something when they encountered his art, and he spent the last five years of his life devoted to making artworks that would heal humanity and, through this creative act, himself.

The Toledo Museum of Art is honored to introduce visitors to the art of Bobby Anspach. This exhibition of his work — presented in his hometown for the first time — celebrates his extraordinary vision and enduring legacy.

Anspach was born in 1987 in Toledo, Ohio. He was exposed to art at a young age through his family and took classes at TMA as a teenager. He focused on a studio art major at Boston College while also exploring religion and theology. Determined to pursue a career as an artist after graduating in 2011, he continued his studies at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco before attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he completed an MFA in sculpture in 2017. By the time he arrived in Rhode Island, Anspach had already started to conceptualize the artwork he hoped to make, which was largely informed by his own immersion into Buddhism and eastern religions.

Anspach’s experience with meditation instilled within him a sense of peace and retreat from an outside world that he perceived as disconnected to the realities of climate change and the catastrophic perils the world faced in the future. His meditative practice led him to the realization that everything in the universe was inherently connected.

Anspach felt compelled to share this sense of peace and togetherness with others because he believed it would give way to greater compassion for each other and the planet. As he wrote in his MFA thesis at RISD, “I have had very deep experiences in this world which have shown me something profound. These experiences have shown me that there is a way of relating to this world that, if everyone could see it, we would all live our lives in a very different way. We would see that what we have is incredibly precious and we would go to great lengths to care for each other and for the planet.”

Anspach understood words weren’t adequate to get his message across, but art had the capacity to do so. In a 2015 email draft written during his time at RISD, he explained, “I wish to show the world that our life is the most precious opportunity imaginable. That the suffering that we feel is the result of [an] incorrect perspective, one which views other people as separate, and imagines that heaven is in some moment other than this one.” Anspach envisioned sculpture as the vehicle to create an immersive experience that explored perception by transcending physical limits, ultimately leading to the creation of the eye machines. These would remain his primary artistic focus until his premature death in 2022. As he also wrote in that same correspondence, “I am going to make the most beautiful sculpture in the world. A space for the mind to dissolve the boundaries between the self and the other. It is going to be beautiful because everything is beautiful when the mind lets go.”

Though Anspach’s multimedia sculptures were unique in their construction, he called them all Place for Continuous Eye Contact as each were an iteration of the same concept, requiring the active participation of a viewer to engage in a visual and aural experience. The sculptures are meant to generate an altered state of consciousness by collapsing time and space through a shift in perception that dissolves spatial planes into a continuous, cohesive field that gives way to a sense of disembodiment and then calm. This change in awareness transforms one’s state of being from mundane to transcendent by creating spiritual unification with reality and with others. Anspach hoped his machines would serve as a momentary retreat, providing a blissful and meditative experience while promoting a feeling of togetherness and connection to the greater world.

Visitors to Losing Ourselves Together: The Art of Bobby Anspach will experience two examples of Place for Continuous Eye Contact. Both machines are decorated with brightly colored pom poms — his signature material — affixed in patterns resembling mandalas and glowing LED lights.

Although there appears to be a haphazard arrangement of cords, cables and ropes, the structures are intricately designed and utilize complex digital technology to distribute data and control lighting patterns. A guide will be present at each artwork to greet a visitor and walk them through the protocol. Each guest will receive an eye patch to cover one eye and a pair of headphones before entering the machine. Once instructions are provided, the experience begins. For several minutes an ambient musical composition plays while the images visible through one eye start to blur and merge with the colors and forms of the sculpture. The combination of visual encounter and music induce a meditative moment.

Losing Ourselves Together: The Art of Bobby Anspach opens to the public on October 17 and will be on view through March 14, 2027. We invite you to experience Anspach’s quest to discover a moment of pause, a space for reflection and connection to something larger than oneself.

Originally published in Art Matters, Summer 2026
Toledo Museum of Art

Losing Ourselves Together: The Art of Bobby Anspach
October 17, 2026–March 14, 2027