"The works in this show came together through a series of conversations around the word ‘fugue’. I was fascinated with the term's promiscuousness. Most words, over time, gather shades of meaning, but fugue is conspicuously plural. There is Bach’s interweaving musical motifs, the building of one melodic line or instrument upon another. The term also has psychiatry application, where the fugue state describes the return of memory after amnesia, and in German, fugue is a carpentry term for a joint that can never be flush. And the Latin etymology - "flight". “Fugue” is a clearly overwrought little yarn.
This lead to further thinking about what is lost and gained in the process of translation, the slipperiness of words and how the lack of fixed meaning inherent to translation relates to other kinds of vagueness. Bertrand Russell, in an essay called “On Vagueness” claims that all language is vague and that accepting this fact and reading through it is key to understanding. His claim makes clearer the importance of looking hard and of a willingness to unlearn a few steps of the dance, or simply to accept that not all can be understood without nodding to your own subjectivity.
In the end this is a room of objects not meant to be propped up by a piece of paper. There are eleven works by seven artists, each of which is meant to play off another, in the interest of something like a "fugue." Some of the works, such as Marina Rosenfeld’s album, Warrior Queen or Blair Saxon Hill’s Cane relate directly to thoughts inspired by a musical fugue. R.H. Quaytman on the other hand, seems to be inviting the viewer to look closer, counter-intuitively, by obfuscating her imagery with thinly veiled layers of medium that create optical illusions. Shana Lutker’s long knotted cotton braid, Russes, makes literal the idea of twisting and turning, mentally as well as materially, and acts as a solid metaphor for the push-pull of the mind's operations."
- Summer Guthery
About the artists
Talia Chetrit (NYC) received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. Her works have been exhibited at Palais de Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art (Miami), Frieze Frame (NY), Sies and Hoke (Berlin), Michael Benevanto (LA), Renwick Gallery (NY), IMO Projects (Copenhagen), Marian Goodman (NY), Office Baroque (Antwerp), Vilma Gold (London) among others. Chetrit has a concurrent exhibition at Leslie Fritz Gallery in New York.
Shana Lutker (LA) received her MFA from UCLA in 2005. Her works have been exhibited at Performa13 Biennial, Barbara Seiler (Zurich), Susanne Vielmetter (LA), Artists Space (NY), CCA Wattis (San Francisco), Sculpture Center (NY), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow), Lisa Cooley Gallery (NY) among others. Lutker is concurrently showing at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Virginia Overton (NYC) received her MFA from the University of Memphis, Tennessee in 2005. Her works have been exhibited widely including Westfalischer Kunstverein (Munster), Kunsthalle Bern (Switzerland), Basel 41 (Switzerland), New Museum (NY), Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (The Netherlands), Flag Projects ( St. Louis), White Columns (NY), Mitchell-Innes & Nash (NY), The Kitchen (NY), The Power Station (Dallas), Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis) among others.
Marlo Pascual received her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2007. Her works have been exhibited at Gessellschaft fur Arktuelle Kunst (Bremen), Martos Gallery (NY), Dallas Museum of Art (Texas), Hessel Museum (Annandale, NY), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Vancouver Art Gallery (Canada), Casey Kaplan (NY), White Columns (NY), The Sculpture Center (NY), The Swiss Institute (NY) among others.
Virginia Poundstone received her MFA from Columbia University in 2009. Her works have been exhibited with Cleopatra's (NY), Rachel Uffner (NY), Sculpture Center (NY), Art in General (NY), Louis B. James (NY), Night Gallery (LA), Taxter & Spengemann (NY), The Bronx Museum (NY), ThreeWalls Gallery (Chicago) among others. Poundstone has a concurrent exhibition at Kansas Gallery in New York.
R.H. Quaytman received the Rome Prize Fellowship in 2001 and achieved her Post Graduate degree at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin. Her works have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale,The Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Miguel Abreu Gallery (NY), MUMOK (Vienna), Museum of Modern Art (NY), Grand Palais (Paris), Guggenheim Museum (NY), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Hessel Museum (Annandale, NY), Sculpture Center (NY), Bergen Kunsthall (Norway), Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis) among others.
Marina Rosenfeld is a visual artist and avant garde composer who lives and works in New York City. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has performed and exhibited widely including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), Performa (NY), Whitney Biennial (NY), Biennial, Wein Modern (Germany), Holland Festival, Stedelijk Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Tura New Music (Australia) among others.
Blair Saxon-Hill studied at Reed College. She has exhibited with Fourteen30 Contemporary (Portland), The Lumber Room (Portland), The Portland Art Center and has upcoming exhibitions at Portland State University and The North View Gallery.About Disjecta's Curator-in-Residence Program
The Curator-in-Residence program provides an opportunity for emerging local and national curatorial talent to develop and expand the scope of their practice. During their one-year residency, curators engage a broad range of artists to create a series of exhibitions in Disjecta’s dynamic 3,500-square-foot space. By showcasing new work and fueling collaborations between artists, curators, and viewers, Disjecta seeks to impact new audiences and intervene in the larger contemporary arts dialogue.
Summer Guthery, MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, was selected as the 2013–2014 Curator-in-Residence.
