"Coincidental Opposites" Exhibition
Causey Contemporary
This event has ended.
Coincidental Opposites comes from the latin phrase "coincidentia oppositorum" and is a term used to describe the polarities or yin and yang of the universe. Latin is not however the first language in which these terms were coined but rather in archaic Chinese when the 6th century B.C. philosopher, Lao Tze began to suggest that "there can be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female." The Christian and Jewish Mystic traditions again put forth this philosophy in the 15th century with writers such as Nicholas of Cusa who voiced the concept as the "unity of contrarieties overcoming opposition by convergence without destroying or by merely blending the constituent elements." The alchemists of the period quickly adapted the term as synonymous with their fifth process, conjunction. Later thinkers such as Meister Elkhart and G.W. F. Hegel further stretched the definition to hold that presumed polarities in thought don't exclude one another but are actually necessary conditions for the assertion of their opposites.
Artists throughout all these time periods and indeed today have struggled to illustrate the coincidental opposites as they encountered them. Through their creations, their audiences have also been forced to consider this duality as well. It is this trait in art that we examine in a small way with this exhibition. The eight artists within the exhibition explore either obliquely through references or directly with their materials/symbols the coincidental opposites of beauty and the grotesque, permanence and impermanence, attraction and repulsion, solid and non solid, soft and hard, yielding and lethal as well as full and empty. Within their art, each of the eight artists utilize the coincidental opposites to help them approach the sublime, react to events in the world around them and/or give birth to new ideas or thought processes.
Media
Schedule
from July 16, 2010 to August 23, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-07-16 from 18:00 to 21:00
Artist(s)
R.L. Croft, Michel Demanche, Jordan Eagles, Cui Fei, Norman Mooney, Shen Chen, Zane York