EXHIBITION: STILL MISSING: BEAUTY ABSENT SOCIAL LIFE
Friday, 1/12
- Sunday, 3/4/07
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"Still Missing: Beauty Absent Social Life is based largely on the sense that something is missing. Of the many ideas that go back at least to the time of Plato, an especially perplexing one is that longing - or the desire for something - presupposes the absence of precisely that which is wanted. One cannot (presumably) desire what one already has. Accompanying this thought, at least in Plato's formulation of it, is the rather painful acknowledgment that since the object of desire is necessarily missing, then absent too must be any complete, genuine knowledge of that which we desire. In short, since we don't have, and thus cannot know, whatever it is we want, our desires begin in ignorance, which can't help but result in a kind of self-confusion. Thus desire, which is in and of itself consternating, becomes more so because it seems to hold the promise of a recovery of, and completion for, the self." - extract from Still Missing: Beauty Absent Social Life catalogue
Still Missing takes its cue from painting’s centuries-old concern with absence. Historically, painting has been an attempt to make present that which is no longer there - whether the buffalo outlined in a cave painting, objects captured in a still life or the sitter for a portrait. The exhibition addresses a number of questions pertinent to painting today and in particular the question of what kind of society contemporary art depicts as desirable. For all the recent discussion of absence among theorists and philosophers, how have contemporary artists given visual appearance to social longing? What might an absent society look like?
 
 
Artists
Richmond Burton lives and works in East Hampton, New York, and is represented by Cheim & Read; his work is widely exhibited and held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Based in Brooklyn, Jeff Gauntt has exhibited at PS1 Contemporary Art Center and in group exhibitions across the U.S.; he is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
David Humphrey lives and works in New York City and is also represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co.; he has shown recently at Triple Candie.
Katharina Immekus lives and works in Leipzig, and is represented by Galerie b2.
Also based in Leipzig, Verena Landau has exhibited in Leipzig, Essen, Dusseldorf and New York
Matthias Ludwig lives and works in Leipzig; he has shown at Galerie Gmyrek, Dusseldorf and Kunstverein Leipzig.
Chris Martin (MPS 1992 Art Therapy) lives and works in New York and has exhibited recently at Uta Scharf and Sideshow Gallery.
Based in New York, Gary Stephan has exhibited internationally for nearly four decades and teaches at SVA.
Amy Wilson lives and works in Jersey City, New Jersey, and is on the faculty at SVA; she is represented by Bellwether Gallery, New York.
Tom Huhn is a writer and philosopher whose current research is focused on the history of aesthetic pleasure. His book publications include: Imitation and Society: The Persistence of Mimesis in the Aesthetics of Burke, Hogarth and Kant (Penn State Press, 2004); and The Wake of Art: Criticism, Philosophy and the Ends of Taste (Gordon & Breach, 1998). Huhn’s essays have appeared in Art Criticism, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, The Oxford Art Journal and New German Critique. Huhn was appointed chair of the Art History Department at SVA in August 2005. Still Missing is the first exhibition he curated at SVA.
Curator's Talk: January 31, 2007
Curator Tom Huhn along with artists Amy Wilson, David Humphrey and Jeff Gauntt spent the evening discussing their artwork as well as the concept of the show Still Missing: Absence of Beauty.
Artist Amy Wilson | 
Artist David Humphrey | 
Artist Jeff Gauntt |
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The Crowd listens to Tom Huhn. | 
Elizabeth Strick and Gillian Anderson | 
Herb Meyer volunteers his opinion. |
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Artists David Humphrey and Megan Craig talk with Curator Tom Huhn. | | |
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