Exhibition 24 May - 5 July 2012
OPENING RECEPTION 24 May, 2012
SIX TO EIGHT IN THE EVENING
Masters & Pelavin Gallery
13 Jay Street New York, NY 10013
+1 646 926 2787
GALLERY@MASTERSPELAVIN.COM
for more info:http://masterspelavin.com/silence/
Masters & Pelavin is proud to present Silence, a group exhibition of international artists, curated by Estonian artist and curator Jaanika Peerna. A variety of media will be shown—video, sculpture, painting, photography and installation—a number of artists represented, including: Peter Baumann, Anne Lindberg, Janine Magelsen, Kazumi Tanaka, Thomas Fougeirol, Kaido Ole, Jaan Toomik, Jaanika Peerna and Krista Mölder.
What can silence mean in a world as noisy as ours, to minds as filled with images, thoughts, and plans as the one around us? One often hears that there is no such thing as silence, as John Cage found out when he entered the anechoic chamber at Harvard, a room designed to research the complete absence of sound. He heard the beat of his heart and the firing of neurons in his brain.
We can barely attain silence but we continue to quest for it, and we are in awe when we find it. As Max Picard writes in his eloquent and spiritual book The World of Silence in 1952, “When silence is present it is as though nothing but silence has ever existed.” As Picard continues, “Silence looks at man more than man looks at silence.” It is as if the world watches us, looking for all those things of which we cannot speak. Each artist in this exhibition offers us a work which comments on a different aspect of those things that can be perceived only in quiet, or what is impossible to say, or what is forbidden to be said.
Within Western culture, silence is defined as the relative or total lack of audible sound. By analogy, the word silence may also refer to any absence of communication, even in media other than speech. Yet, silence is used as total communication, in reference to non verbal communication and spiritual connection. It is the absence or omission of mention, comment, or expressed concern. A freedom from the onslaught of thoughts and thought patterns. A state of being forgotten. A bringing to rest or stillness. A hush. A quell. A muzzle.
image: Jaanika Peerna, Murmuring Silence, graphite on mylar, 36x36 in, 2012
