For their apparent omnipresence, omnibenevolence and omnipotence, both gravity and ideology manifest something of a cruel divinity. As necessary conditions for our negotiation of the world; they are at once the crutch we depend upon and the cast we drag about.
In this exhibition gravity serves as a metaphoric point of departure, aligning notions of falling with failure, the revolving alongside revolt. The failure to resist its force is echoed in the unenviable burden of heirs who inherit, through the institutions of family, school and church, the irresistible ‘common sense’ of a dominant ideology. These poor heirs, beholden to their navels, take their father’s names and enter dutifully into symbolic order.
In the face of what may be suggestively bleak, despairing or offensive, these metaphors and these works offer inherently humble, heartfelt and relatable sincerity; like us, they are full of subtle gestures, double meanings and slapstick nihilism; and like us they are wrapped warmly in a felt of false consciousness, earnestly struggling against the weight of the world to remain its upstanding members.
curated by Matt Hanson
HEIRS
Bas Jan Ader / Sean Kerr / John Ward Knox / Michael Moran / Campbell Patterson
26/7-12/8/12