"InVisible Silence" opened last Friday at the David Winton Bell Gallery. Initially, I wanted to say that the show was absolute bunk. This was an entirely visceral reaction, ironic for a show whose catalog begins with the quote by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, stating, "There is no intelligible world, there is the sensible world. ... The sensible is that: this possibility to be evident in silence, to be understood implicitly."
But the show was good.
Among criticisms: The "InVisible" of the title produces the bitter after-taste of academic cleverness - perhaps of a great personal satisfaction by the author at the semantic ambiguity created by the capitalization of the V.
The show suggests, rather strongly, how the viewer should interpret it. The viewer is told over and over how the pieces should make him feel. This is worrisome. Must we be instructed to understand a certain implicit je ne sais quoi?
The show is based upon putting into practice notions from the writings of Existentialist philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. But to understand the show - its purpose, its raison d'être - you have to read summarizations of Merleau-Ponty. Pontificated in the language of theory, the show is enshrouded further in the cathedral of high art, ever more inaccessible to cultural laymen.
Yet in spite of these criticisms - or perhaps even without regard to them - "InVisible Silence" succeeds.
Each piece, grand in scale or intimacy and marked by simplicity, achieves a certain unspoken, unpretentious aesthetic. Each piece conveys something inexpressible, just as any great novel, dance or work of music does. Is not all great art supposed to do this?
Sandra Cinto's drawings in "Untitled" (2004) play across two walls, painted a light sea-foam green. They're almost childish - a scratchy fantasyland of chutes and ladders, linked by rough and uneven lines. Rock-like forms, almost hairy-looking, complex and textured, populate the walls, anchoring the ladders and lines. In its expanse, however, the work achieves the energy and innocence of a childhood dream. In its dancing simplicity, the work avoids the cold reductionism of Modernist works.
Fred Sandback is quoted in the catalog. He states, "I'm interested in working in that area in which the mind can no longer hold on to things. The point at which all ideas fall apart." In his "Untitled/Corner Construction" (1981), red, yellow and blue acrylic fibers stretch from floor to ceiling. They are at once simply threads of colored yarn in a gallery space and something more: a purity of line, color, form, space and even texture. As both nothing and something, yarn and art, they achieve the sought-after dialogue of the inexpressible.
Yoshihiro Suda's wooden flowers and leaf of "Ma" (1997) reside here, too. Suda explains in the catalog that "ma" in Japanese "means 'nothing,' 'between' and 'void,' yet at the same time mean(s) 'something.'" The work is surprisingly small. Yet, framed by significant white floor-space near ground level, its fragility and detail emphasizes a consciousness of this space.
Also featured in "InVisible Silence" are works, installations and DVD projections by Kate Sheperd, Yael Bartana, Su-Mei Tse and Regi Müller. The show will run through Oct. 24.
