A HEALTHY SKEPTICISM
@ Swimming Pool Project Space
2858 W Montrose Ave, Chicago, IL 60618
Opening Saturday, January 22nd, from 6PM - 9PM
On view through Sunday, February 6th
Work by Joshua Abelow, Carl Baratta and Josh Reames.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty states in The Phenomenology of Perception that “If reflection is to justify itself as reflection, that is to say, as progress towards the truth, it must not merely put one view of the world in place of another, it must show us how the naive view of the world is included in and transcended by the sophisticated one.” The exhibition will look at art-making methods involved with skepticism not for its own sake, but as a crucial step in forming a social dialectic.
Abelow’s work is a disciplined exploration into the life, meaning and symbols of a painter. His paintings exercise autobiography, color, rigid geometric abstraction, text and expressive figuration. The figurative works are self-portraits that mock a perverse persona of himself as a painter.
Baratta’s paintings are highly colorful and highly referential. He appropriates Alchemy prints, glam rock costumes, Kung-Fu movies, and Moghul miniature painting among a wide range of other sources to establish a broken narrative—one in which the only conclusion is that something is wrong.
Reames’ work deals with the back-and-forth between image and object. His paintings are often sculptural and his sculptures typically employ two-dimensional images. The work is a demonstration of a disbelief in absolutes and a strong belief in nuance and the grey area.
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