Curatorial Statement – TO SAY THE LEAST – Faye Gleisser

To Say The Least aims to relieve viewers of the common mystification of the artist and art object through the familiar context of a domestic interior. In addition, this curatorial project extends an open-ended invitation: To acknowledge and celebrate the information, which is rarely seen and invariably unknown yet crucial to the appeal and significance of art today.

Here, art viewers are not required to “get it,” or to know exactly what the artist was thinking when he or she conceptualized the work. Most importantly, the art objects featured in the show are static expressions of ideas only when perceived as such.  The theme, “to say the least,” speaks thus to those unmentioned factors—those relationships and interactions upon which the creation of art is based. As a result, the tone of this curatorial exhibition reverberates with Nicolas Bourriad’s claim that, “the role of artwork is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real.” Intentionally informal, the setting and artwork in To Say The Least encourages people who may feel intimidated by museums and galleries to shrug off formal notions about art and artists. How do we live with and through art? What is the outcome? It also brings these notions closer to home, inside the home even, where art can be considered not as a thing, but as “a state of encounter.”

Ding Ren’s Plaques Piece, whose scattered coordinates send viewers on an art scavenger-hunt, visually and conceptually illustrates the relevance of this model. Playfully reminding us that contemporary art can be fun and imaginative, Ren simultaneously involves the viewer in the simulation and practice of discriminative looking and association: one must differentiate between “Art” and what is only a mark on the wall, consequently emphasizing the process of creating new connections and the fracturing of knowledge through experience. Her installation, The History of Italian Renaissance Art, also confronts the behind-the-scenes chaos of this exhibition, emphasizing further the relationships and actions that are silenced in a white cube paradigm.  In a similar vein, Adam Davies’ print, Beck Creek Road, subtly alludes to the simultaneous presence and absence of information, as well as the selective framing of a visual “history.” While we sense the endurance of the landscape in the image, we do not know how the ground was scarred, or what other visual information was sacrificed for the realization of the image.

In the end, it is the unknown that draws us, again and again, to art and its makers. The voyeuristic and empathetic nature in each of us to know something intimate and private about another human being continues the conversation. Accordingly, Sarada Conaway’s apartment series and Imin Yeh’s confrontation of symbols force us to revisit the importance of a cultural and social context in the interpretation of art. To Say The Least asks that its viewers no longer approach abstract or minimalist art, such as the experimental works by Matthew Seymour and Patrick McDonough, as objects to categorize and then abandon. Instead: what are the unmentioned narratives? How do the works cultivate a new awareness for the social? What do they mean to you? It is the perception of these understated influences and relationships that will lead us to a fuller understanding of the role and potential of art and its exhibition today.