The
Experiment deals with the concepts of PURITY: Physical,
Spiritual, Technological, Ideological, Artistic and its
antithesis: CONTAGION: as idea, as meme, as virus -- forces
linking and transmitting one thing to another.
PURE embraces the aesthetic of STERILITY: 1) the Operating
Theater, 2) the Clean Room in high tech manufacturing
and 3) the White Box Gallery.
1) Surgeons undergo a highly meticulous purification ritual.
Upon entering the operating theater, protective masks
are donned. These barriers prevent contagion from infecting
the patient, but also protect the surgeon from potential
contagion from the patient.
2) PURE embraces the aesthetics of technology as well
as technology itself in its quest to employ the most elegant
(pure) solutions to technical problems. Technology is
increasingly incorporating itself into the medical arena,
so much so that it is becoming difficult to tell where
the human and the technological elements begin and end,
concepts which both delight and frighten us. It is the
same situation with technology's influence on art.
3) PURE deals with the intersection of art, technology
and medicine beginning at the common environment where
these discipline exist: the sterile white room. The show
explores the concept of Purity and Sterility, and how
societal ideals have been both enhanced and compromised
by our almost cult-like belief and dependence on Progress
and the increasing interconnectedness within art, technology
and medicine. That our PURE environment is a Big Empty
White Box Store injects the volatility of The Market into
the mix, forcing us to ask; Is Art being sterilized?
•
• •
PURE is a mixed media interactive exhibition / laboratory--
a collaborative effort of artists and performers exploring
the concepts of Sterility and Contagion. Media includes
installation, drawing, painting, sculpture, sound, song,
poetry, photography, video, electronics, and performance
with many improvisational and collaborative crossovers.
PURE is a loaded word. At once its varied connotations
are positive and negative in the extreme. Consider spiritual
purity. Consider racial purity. Consider a pure (clean)
environment. A lake. A laboratory. A hospital-- a place
of both healing and contagion.
Upon entering the PURE exhibition, viewers must go through
a purification ritual- much as a surgeon does before entering
the operating room. The viewer becomes the physician exploring,
discovering, diagnosing the different symbiotic elements
that make up PURE.
Unlike other white box art spaces the walls of PURE remain
bare. The art huddles in the middle, a wide swath of empty
space separating the pieces from the walls. Though the
scale of the space is large, many of the works are small.
Even when full, PURE is empty- minimal, forcing the viewer
to come in closer—to examine and study the works
more closely.
PURE questions whether art can be seen in a “pure”
context. Within this “sterile” environment,
art is mixed with artifact without adequate attribution.
Artworks infect each other, seeking to challenge the rigid
borders– the comfortable distance that physically
separates individual pieces in most galleries or museums.
The result is that in the process of assembling an exhibition
of 73 artists, a group installation has been created from
individual works and from intentionally or unintentionally
placed random objects. This collaborative process between
the artists is the backbone of PURE.
PURE ART is White, Black, Metallic or Clear by design.
Whether this “Purified” and desaturated aesthetic
embodies minimalistic sterility or constructed contagion
becomes the question.
• • •
PURE’s location in Boston is very apropos with the
announcement of plans to develop a number of high profile
institutions dedicated to medical and scientific research.
The exciting pace of scientific and medical discovery
continues to revolutionize our lives. The artists in the
exhibition explore how such advances have both enhanced
and challenged our society and how we define ourselves
within it.
The artists working
in this collaborative effort are local, national and international.
They are career artists, doctors, scientists, writers
and technologists, a number of which are from Boston’s
academic community. They are seasoned professionals, famous
names, unknowns, art students, collectives, professors,
and first time artists. Non traditional artistic media
such as academic research, are presented as lectures as
well as physical objects, incorporated into the physical
collage of the collaboration.
PURE
is pleased to host an exhibition-within-an-exhibition
of relics from the Empire S.N.A.F.U. Restoration Project.
