NEW YORK, NY.- For as long as civilization has existed, two powerful forces have been at odds: reason and emotion. On one side were those who saw reason and logic as the keys to unlocking truth and understanding the world. On the other side were those who argued that emotion, with its raw intensity and depth, was the gateway to deeper truths about human experience. In essence, it is a struggle over which force should guide human thought, mind, and spirit.
For this exhibition, Between Reason and Imagination, we chose art that contained this tension, that contained a dialogue with the ideas that were born and forged around these two camps. We were compelled to find not only the emotion and imagination that abound freely in art, but also works that engage, converse with, or subvert reason. And in keeping with the ethos and nature of the gallery and its founder, this exhibition includes an amalgamation of artists from different cultures who offer us different views of utopia and dystopia.
In the first room, Jeffrey Gibson and Entang Wiharso engage in a vibrant exchange between abstraction and imagination. Gibson's bold, colorful, angular forms push the boundaries of the canvas, while Wiharso's fantastical creations, reminiscent of botanical illustrations, transport us to otherworldly realms. In both works we sense a tension pulling in one direction or the other - one form negotiating the boundaries of what is expected and accepted for a work of art to conform to, and the other grounded in reality yet free to imagine a new way of being.
The second room focuses on portraiture, where Sandro Chia, Renée Stout, Alexander Tinei, and Paul Pretzer explore the emotional complexity of the human form. Through expression, color, symbolism, and, above all, the gaze, they challenge our understanding of identity and reality. Chia and Pretzer use symbols such as the upward-pointing arm, which can be read alternately as a reference to a higher intellectual order or to a more spiritual existence, and the owl, which can be read as a symbol of wisdom or the uncanny. Stout’s piercing gaze and references to jealousy and Vodou, alongside Tinei’s sorrowful figure, invite deeper reflection on human emotions and the inner world of conflict and repression.
In the final room, Thomas Bangsted, Anna Leonhardt, Volha Panco and Moris use mixed media and photography to blur the boundaries between perception and reality. Bangsted and Panco create alternate realities, while Leonhardt and Moris layer color and imagery, from paint forming a new boundary beyond the canvas to references to high and low art juxtaposed against each other. These works challenge us to look closer and question what we think we see, what we think we know.
While the exhibition explores the play of reason and emotion in the works themselves, we also want it to be a space that allows us, the viewers, to discover and explore our own inner dialogue that oscillates between reason and emotion. We invite you to find the reasons and emotions that are staged in this space, and those that swirl within you, to discover those that we miss. Art can help us in this endeavor, for it is in the liminal spaces between reason and imagination that a world is created. What world will it be?
Curated by Daniel Sachs
