Palo Gallery (New York) is delighted to announce our latest exhibition, Subject Object, a group show featuring artworks by Vija Clemins, Lisa Giordano, Gavin Gleeson, Matvey Levenstein, Hafsa Nouman, Marguerite Piard, Danny Sobor, Allegra Toran, and Yuwei Tu.
Curated by gallery founder Paul Henkel, Subject Object aims to explore the complex topic of ambiguity in art. The exhibition explores the flux between subjectivity and objectivity that humans are constantly in a state of as discussed by existentialists Simone de Beauvoir (Ethics of Ambiguity 1947) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Perception, 1945). The work of these nine artists are arranged to explore the contradictory state of being both perceiver and the perceived that makes our understanding of reality unfixed and ambiguous.
“Ambiguity is essential to human existence, and everything we live or think always has several senses.” - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Donald Landes Translation
From painting to mixed media, the exhibition brings together artists who work with ambiguity not as something to resolve, but as something to sit with, using it to open up new ways of seeing and understanding. This is a key point of De Beauvoir’s in which the embrace of the ambiguous state is the ultimate goal of living and moreover art. Throughout art history artists have tested the depths and tension of this experience, and allowed works to exist with a flexibility in their understanding or interpretation. Each artist in this exhibition has approached the genre from a different perspective, yet each can be found to embrace this fluid state.
“Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. - Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, Part 1, Frechtman Translation
Literary critic William Empson (Seven Types of Ambiguity, 1930) argues that the less certain and more unknowable a work of creativity is the closer it comes to the height of art. In Subject Object, Vija Clemin’s works present flat undefined sections of earth devoid of scale or horizon leading the viewer to question relation, position and purpose. Whereas the work of Hafsa Nouman layers pigment and material to create reflective abstract artworks that blur the viewers relationship and role in the interpretation of the artwork.
The ethereal is a topic that Allegra Toran takes on in the arena of ambiguity rendering landscapes and spaces from memory, with the haze and colour work of each piece leading one to question the validity and reality of each snapshot. Marguerite Piard on the other hand tackles the complex lines of gaze and desire in regard to the female form, often cropping the body up close and finding space for gaze while avoiding objectification. The body continues to be a place of exploration for Yuwei Tu who reduces the form in wax, oil, and drawing until we arrive at artworks that are almost shadows of a subject.
In the oil paintings of Danny Sobor and Lisa Giordano, both artists demonstrate a fundamental engagement with the concept of image. Sobor recreates unknown images found in internet archives in a meticulous haze filled with questions. While Giordano takes on an almost essentialist approach repeatedly painting subjects into their most essential elements, and to the point of their most fundamental state.
No work of art can be an exact expression of reality, and the artworks that make this their goal end up as illustration. Subject Object embraces ambiguity, creating a space where meaning can move, shift, and enrich.
Please join Palo Gallery and some of the artists for a celebratory opening reception on Friday, 20 February, from 6 - 8pm at 21 East 3rd Street in New York City.