Project: Free
“Juried by Jeffrey Wechsler who served as head curator at the Zimmerli museum for many years, and curated by Tania Sen “Project: Free” will be at the Printmaking Center of NJ until June 1st, accessible during gallery hours listed on PCNJ website. Lastly, SIPMA Contemporary outreach is pleased to have Watchung Hills Regional High School as part of its exhibit. ” – NJ [dot] com
I Eat Therefore I Am
Consumption is endless and voracious – whether it is breathing air, smoke, narcotics, or ingesting food and drinks, medicine and supplements! Given the opportunity it often exceeds our needs. The practice of abstinence can be just as furious and fervent. Intellectually we consume gigabytes of data every day, more than one’s capacity to assimilate. So intrinsic is the need to consume that the desire to abstain calls for extreme conscious effort. Yet it has been the goal of every regime to distribute and control consumption of its people. Artists express their take on food, body image, need, nourishment, obsession, and compulsion, anything that pertains to the human condition in question.
I Live Here Now
explores the state of modern community, with its set of allegiance and shifting paradigm of habitat in a culture of consumerism. The number of luxury-goods consumers worldwide over the past 20 years has more than trebled to 330m yet the definition of luxury remains ephemeral, albeit that in itself might be the attraction it bears! Newlyweds pose in front of illuminated shop windows with designer name brand items for romance in some parts of the world – themselves unequipped to acquire such goods. “The acquisition of luxury is both an attempt at transcendence and an act of appropriation, like the picking of the apple in the garden of Eden.”
I Live Here
is a show that addresses individual space – in varying expressions; irrespective of one’s place of residence. Modern man is for the most part removed from his habitat in some way or other. From small town to big city, from one state to another, from one country to another – sometimes in a single generation, sometimes more. It is the conversation with his environment that builds points of reference and metaphorical stages of familiarity. It is this conversation, rather than daily living that creates his experience of inhabitancy. Thus the “phaneron” described by Charles Pierce, i.e., the world as filtered through our senses and bodies – irrespective of the universe as it exists in its physical form, is the focus. This exhibition attempts to trace the interpretation of space – real or metaphorical that is a reflection of reality shaped by individual perception and
cultural filters.
The point to ponder would be if the impact of smartphone and social media is morphing this space, through neglect, creating a virtual void and if as a consequence, intensifying communication with the self for the lack of relational anchors. This exhibit will comprise of works by the following international artists who have given form and interpretation to a space, real or metaphorical that is a reflection of their own reality. 53 artists from all across the globe explore the concept of home and habitat, sense of belonging or the lack thereof, shifting paradigms of locality and habitat.