Biano all’acqua, by Silvia De Marchi (Fabriano paper, time, glue, 12 x 10 x 2.”)
Pell Lucy’s summer exhibit, Travel the Question, considers the way a work of art comes into form as well as how we as viewers find our way into its mysteries. The show is now on Artsy and can be viewed here. The curatorial statement is included below.
We also extend a welcome to Kathryn Fanelli, a long time Pell Lucy cotraveler who is now a member of the collective.
Effigy, by Kathryn Fanelli (Chemicals, gouache on paper, 13 × 10.”)
Curatorial Statement
TRAVEL THE QUESTION
Unlike puzzles or word games, art is not about the search for an answer. While a work may have a particular meaning for the artist who created it, that meaning is not imposed on anyone else. When we spend time with a work of art, we supply our own meaning or simply choose to surrender the search.
Good art will, after all, find a way to speak on its own terms. As Bridget Riley describes her intentions, “I want the disturbance or ‘event’ to arise naturally, in visual terms, out of the inherent energies and characteristics of the elements which I use.” And as recent research has demonstrated, the way in which we see and “read” visual language is rich with layered nuance, complexity and mystery.
It might be more useful to think about art as a portal or a prism, one where questions take you deeper into what is not obvious or known. “A work of art tends to speak of things that are at once too large and too intimate to be summed up, and they speak of them by not speaking at all.” (from All the Beauty of the World, by former Metropolitan Museum of Art guard Patrick Bringley)
Jasper Johns, famously disinterested in interpretations of his work, once joked that of all the books written about his art, the one he liked best was in Japanese. “I couldn’t understand a word!” Feeling at home with not knowing and holding many unanswered questions—the quality John Keats named Negative Capability—is table stakes for making as well as viewing art.
When a recent work by an artist is looked at closely, it’s like walking into the middle of a deep conversation. At some prior point in time, that artist encountered new territory that felt inexplicably compelling. And so a journey begins, one that can meander, make sharp pivots, even loop back on itself. The only thing that is certain is that there never was–nor never will be–one final, definitive destination.
That’s what it means to travel the question. You go where it takes you even when that effort is arduous. (The word travel comes from Middle English travailen–to labor, strive, journey–and from Old French travailler–to toil.) You start where you are and let a direction beckon to you. And what you thought you were searching for is rarely what you find.
This creative journey has an uncanny resemblance to the spiritual guidance offered by ancient traditions. These words from the 12th century mystic Zen Master Dogen are particularly apropos:
“There are mountains hidden in treasures. There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky. There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.”
The works included in this exhibit by Pell Lucy artists are multi-layered, deeply considered, complex. Step in closer to discover the place each has created for itself. That is yet another way to travel the question, one that is available to anyone willing to take the time to look deeply.