Ayreen Anastas + Rene Gabri, Neil Beloufa, Keren Cytter, Claire Fontaine and Reza Haeri
Curated by cheyanne turions
June 23 – July 30, 2011
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 23, 2011, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Public Discussion: Saturday, June 25, 2011, 3:00 – 5:00 pm
The Normal Condition of Any Communication takes its title from the words of contemporary philosopher Jacques Rancière who states that “Distance is not an evil to be abolished. It is the normal condition of any communication.” Considering the potential of participating in conversations that extend beyond a person’s particular subject position, these works perform acts of translation between individuals and across cultures. The videos of Neil Beloufa, Keren Cytter and Reza Haeri massage the space between documentary and fiction by way of dismantling a definitive sense of history in order to reconstitute a plurality of accounts. The notebook works of Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri comprise a series of propositions, questions, diagrams and drawings, which trace a dialogic process between the artists that, without effacing the personal, is staunchly political. A text-based neon sign by the artist collective Claire Fontaine questions the way cultural and geographical identities are formed. Together, these works suggest that it is possible to communicate across differences so long as a multiplicity of meanings is fundamentally maintained.
