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With major projects by John Menick, Pedro Reyes, Althea Thauberger, and a special selection of inkblots by Bruce Conner, courtesy Paule Anglim Gallery.
Representation means both a portrayal of the visible world, and to ‘speak on behalf of someone’. In recent years, many artists have developed projects that critically address representation, attending to one or both of these definitions, but thinking about its political implications. In other words, these artists are not only concerned with the image, they also address (for example) the errors of historical depiction, the vicissitudes of gender bias, and the way that political representation ignores as many voices as it champions. These artistic inquiries sometimes overlap with the methods and subjects of psychotherapy, a history which offers analytical tools designed to parse the complex relationship between fantasy and reality, or altruism and self-interest—some of the same tensions within artistic notions of representation. These tools and other tropes from psychotherapy are employed self-reflexively by artists, who have become some of the most important commentators about the role artists play in producing the “cultural imaginary.” This commentary is often one of deep criticism and discontent, pointing to power dynamics and persistent social dilemmas that are inherent but too often suppressed during the production of culture. This 24 hour exhibition, Representation and its Discontents, which reworks the (english translation) title of Freud’s famous essay, presents only a handful of works that hint at this larger tendency in artistic practice.
Conversation with artist John Menick
Wednesday, May 15th, 7pm
New York based Artist John Menick in conversation with anthropologist Christopher Fraga about Menick’s work Starring Sigmund Freud, 2012, originally presented as part of Documenta 13. “Based on an essay John Menick published in Frieze [magazine] in 2011, the video collects the dozens of appearances that the character of Sigmund Freud has made on small and big screens”
