Intentional forms of nonsense within the visual arts.
29 April - 5 June 2015
The genre of nonsense raises philosophical problems from the first. There is a confrontation between meaning and non-meaning in the production of nonsense. The absurd is also born from this conflict. The absurd is of course not the ridiculous, and nonsense is not no sense.
Tracing a tenuous vein from the aggressive poetics and ‘anti-sense’ of Dada to the dissolution and multiplication of meaning in contemporary works, this artist-curated show places an attention on nonsense as a strategy of obfuscation and interrogation of meaning.
What do we consider nonsense today? To what ends is it used? Under what conditions is it recognisable?
The artists in this show test our relationships to nonsense and meaning in different ways. Some work in the phonetic snarl, some generate nonsense via the removal of context or rearrangement of syntax, some play in the continual unfolding and deferral of meaning.
Artists
Brian Bress, Marcel Broodthaers, Pavel Büchler, Ami Clarke, Tyler Coburn, Anita Di Bianco, Tim Etchells, Sonja Gerdes, Vlatka Horvat, Ann Lislegaard, Ken Lum, Masood Kamandy, Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, Mark Manders, Josh Mannis, Poetic Research Bureau, Kim Schoen, Carol Szymanski and Stephanie Taylor.
Buy the exhibition publication.