GEOMETRIC DAYS

February 25 - April 30, 2011

Opening Friday, February 25, 2011 / 7-9pm

"[The Universe] is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures." -- Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore, 1623

GEOMETRIC DAYS is an exhibition of new paintings by eight artists whose deployment of geometry exposes organizational structures from microscopic, political, and spiritual dimensions. Geometry, abstraction and painting are ingrained in our interpretation of experience—geometry as measurement of space and time, abstraction as poetic expression of the visual, and painting as the manifestation of a will to communicate.

These artists propose that geometry isn’t necessarily abstract, but that it is actually a form of reality. Their hand-crafted, anarchic/controlled forms undercut geometric abstraction’s historical ties to utopian idealism. The works call upon mathematics as a spiritual force (and geometry as its visual realization) that codes the experiences of nature, built environments, social constructs, and the digital world. Artist/Curator Papo Colo states: "For these artists geometry is more than a combination of lines. The nature of images is mathematical. Geometry divides borders, topography and climate. This labyrinth of numbers and forms construct the world in a rational way but also transform surfaces/images into spiritual substances that take you to a space of esoteric solutions."

Curated by Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo with Associate Curator Herb Tam.

ARTISTS

Rico Gatson, Peter Hildebrand, Charles Koegel, Geoffrey Owen Miller, Driss Ouadahi, Paul Pagk, Nathlie Provosty, Dannielle Tegeder

STATEMENT

THE MEASURE OF EARTH IS THE MATHEMATICS THAT WE LIVE

Geometry divides borders, topography and climate. This labyrinth of numbers

and forms, constructs the world in a rational way but also transforms images into spiritual substances that take you to a map of esoteric solutions.

Pythagoras described geometry as visual music.

The paintings in this exhibition are compositions that approach harmony.

Scores of music never seen, drawn and then painted with craft and concept.

Everyone with their language in a story without an end,

but with many beginnings.

Our days are hours. Speed is the fusion with time.

Our globe goes around the sun, another ball.

How many steps to any goal? How many circles around our axis?

Numbers and measures are the principal subject and the object of our thoughts.

Our coherent life is an arrangement of mathematical shapes.

Mechanical and natural geometry open out living and spiritual spaces.

Our calculation is total, mathematic in every step.

All that we invent brings a way to measure itself.

Any move conjures shapes, plans have their designs, characters that expand

and contract in flux, color, write the lines, do the painting.

We are proportions, accumulated gestures, and the sum of fragments.

Our balance is distributed gravity walking the tight rope in our subdivided brain that controls our body, made of straight and curved lines.

The signs in your face tell a story as they crisscross marking the route taken.

Alchemy is in the angles.

Every move is calculated. Any time is consumed.

Chance has improvisation under control.

Lines attach forms, volume fills space creating infinite ways of reasoning.

Geometry is a catalyst in our lives.

As when the rectangle of the bed is waiting for your sleep inside the three dimensional

square of a room, geometry sleeps with you inside. The result is in your dreams,

our thoughts are circular—we live in a sphere.

For artists geometry is more than a combination of lines.

It is a system to measure time - space - purpose of mental-writing, drawing and painting in their space of logic. Surfaces emerge in codes, systems, and diagrams informed by the rational and irrational. Resident in the space of logic, the artist finds combinations of angles that the image travels from line to line to forms.

Revealing messages from the natural to the supernatural with an enlightened vision of

order and disorder. Illogical geometry is a religious experience;

logical geometry constructs structures and both rule our life.

The shape of the day is in the space of time and

TIMES ARE ALWAYS TURBULENT…WE JUST MEASURE THE STORM.

Papo Colo

New York, NY 2011

EXHIBITION SUPPORT

General exhibition support provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Bloomberg LP; Jerome Foundation; Lambent Foundation; Pollock-Krasner Foundation; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; Exit Art’s Board of Directors and our members.

http://exitart.org/exhibition_programs/upcoming_programs/geometric_days.html