Exhibition on View: October 7 – October 16
Opening Reception: Friday, October 7, 6-9pm
Flux Factory, 39-31 29t St, Long Island City 11101
The title of this show is inspired by Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls and the character Agustin, the roughish and romantic gypsy soldier residing in the Spanish mountains. He speaks in a manner that is beautiful, and specific to his identity and also incredibly foul. In the novel, Hemingway can only represent the native gypsy-soldiers speech by substituting the various obscenities that permeate his every sentence with the word “unprintable.” When the character Agustin is asked why he speaks the way he does, he responds: “It is a way of speaking that I have. Maybe it is ugly. Who knows? Each one speaks according to his manner.”
Believing that the way in which we speak is inherently tied to our meaning of what we say, this exhibition asks the Alumni of the New York Academy of Art to put forward a single piece that embodies why we choose to make art in the manner that we do. At a time when the ways to make art are unlimited, Picturing the Unprintable is an exhibition to showcase the complete range of NYAA alumni and unpack the diverse range of individual studio practices that have been built on the common experience provided by attending the New York Academy of art and being exposed to its philosophy of traditional skills and contemporary discourse.
- Cory Dixon, AANYAA President (2016)