Escher X nendo | Between Two Worlds is a visually stunning exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (known as NGV) in Melbourne featuring over 150 preparatory sketches, drawings, woodcuts, mezzotints, and lithographs of famed Dutch artist M. C. Escher along with work by the internationally-acclaimed Japanese design studio nendo. The pairing is appropriate since both Escher and Oki Sato, nendo’s founder and principal designer, “share common interests in their love of spatial manipulation, optical illusions and playful visual devices.” In this exhibit, which I thoroughly enjoyed, Sato and his design house nendo have created an immersive installation where visitors can experience Escher’s brilliant 2D graphic world along with nendo’s inventive 3D design world. Sato chose the house shape as a motif for the exhibition because he wanted to create “a house for Escher.” The house motif is repeated in various formats in the exhibition rooms and playfully interspersed with Escher’s own works. In the exhibition’s largest room (the above photo), a grid of black-and-white houses with both open and closed roofs act as a maze that forces visitors to walk through the space to discover tabletop light-boxes displaying works by Escher. Sato says: "I sort of feel like I became best friends with Escher, even though I never met him.” Visitors to the exhibit might feel the same. Escher X nendo is on display at the NGV International through April 7, 2019.