September 9 – November 19, 2017
Matthew Albanese, Greta Alfaro, David Allee, Jasper de Beijer, Amy Bennett, Julie Blackmon, Sharon Core, Roe Ethridge, Richard Finkelstein, April Gornik, David Hilliard, Alex Kanevsky, Patrick Lee, Richard Mosse, Michael Najjar, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Richard Renaldi, Hannah Starkey, Becky Suss, Jörn Vanhöfen and Guido van der Werve.
A fascination with the specificity and veracity of content in contemporary image-making fuels this exhibition. The depiction of places, objects and people has been the raw material of visual art for millennia, and this capacity to record and editorialize subject matter is what makes visual art such a crucially informing and contextualizing pictorial capture of the time of its production. These works represent something just short of an inundation of content, and the presentation – “salon style” – affirms the idea that kaleidoscopic subject matter is enriching and arouses curiosity about the way in which contemporary artists use data and themes in their work to create a reflection of their life and time. The ethos of the exhibition sees parallels with the cabinets of curiosities from the past. Like the curious viewers of old encountering such astonishing collections of objects, we today also experience a primary emotional connection to this type of work because its meaning is self-evident. The viewer’s entry point into these pictures is unclouded by unfamiliarity with contemporary art; anyone can find their way into these accessible depictions and explore the familiar, the strange, the formalistic, and the poetic stance of each image. Curated by Dick Goody. Full-color catalogue available.
