November 23 – December 22, 2010
Curated by Tom Huhn and Isabel Taube
Reception: December 2, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Free admission
Visual Arts Gallery
School of Visual Arts
601 West 26 Street, 15th floor
New York, NY 10001
212.592.2145
http://www.sva.edu
The image is distinct from the picture – the constructed, material object we also might examine visually. It is the virtual appearance that results from the productive interaction between picture and beholder. This exhibition of recent work by 19 established and emerging New York area artists explores the relationship between contemporary painting and the notion of the image in today’s hyper-visual culture. It considers how contemporary painters, working in representational and abstract styles or a combination of both, test long-held assumptions about the unified, static, and persistent nature of images. They challenge the primacy and immediacy of the image and re-shape its look, re-inventing the appearance and experience of visual life. Although the image in contemporary life might well have a more powerful grip on us than ever before, the works on view here demonstrate that painting continues to exercise a singular ability to peel back some of its fingers.
This exhibition is the result of an unusual curatorial collaboration between a philosopher, Tom Huhn, chair of the BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department at the School of Visual Arts, and an art historian, faculty member Isabel Taube.
About the BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department at the School of Visual Arts
The BFA Visual and Critical Studies Department at SVA is designed for ambitious students who want a strong connection between their academic and studio work. This unified, interdisciplinary approach allows students to develop the ability to understand and interpret the art, philosophy, and visual thinking of the past and present; and to make new art while learning the history of practices, theories and artworks.