Back to the Future

Benjamin Bois and Ariela Kuh are pleased to announce "Back to the Future," a show of paintings at the A.P.E. gallery at its new location, 126 Main Street, Northampton.  Bois and Kuh co-curated the show, which features work by a number of young, mostly local artists, including Bois, Kuh and others.  The show will be open from August 1st through the 10th, and there will be a reception on August 8th from 5 to 8 PM, coinciding with Arts Night Out.

The paintings in "Back to the Future" juxtapose multiple visual languages within a single frame.  This idea is generated from and reflects today's cultural and artistic climate, an environment that has fostered a loosening of the hierarchies of visual representation, as well as greater freedom to draw from and combine different formal and historical methods and references.  They explore the possibilities which are opened up when multiple, often incongruous methods of representation are integrated into one image.  The resulting articulations range from jarring collages to carefully interwoven tapestries, to images that opt for nearly homogeneous syntheses.  This approach allows for a reexamination of the ways in which all pictorial elements function as languages.  Essentially, these paintings make us aware of their own artifice, of the fact that paintings are composed of visual language systems.  This challenges the model of picture as window, and furthermore denies the possibility of a singular read.  The contradictions and fissures within these paintings open up a space for the viewer to actively participate in the interpretation of the work.

Opening Reception: Friday, August 8, 5 - 8 pm

Gallery Hours: M - F 10 am – 4 pm, Sat. 1 – 8 pm, Sun. by appointment only

Funded in part from a grant from the Northampton Cultural Council