Earth: Language and Symbols at Cara Y Cabezas Contemporary
Earth: Language and Symbols
Curated by Darin M. White
January 20 – March 10, 2012
Cara Y Cabezas Contemporary
Kansas City, MO
From the earth we emerge and we return to the earth.
We explore our world and grasp to adequately describe through language and
symbols who we are and why. Through sculpted clay, compressed burned trees
and dried pulp, minerals retrieved and many other ways we reach out to speak
about the space that we inhabit as we gaze into the heavens. While it may sound
mundane, in actuality there is life at it’s fullest to be explored, and held in our
open hands for however long we are given. This exhibition, featuring work by
Rex Hausmann and Jimmy Greenfield, attempts to dig deep into these notions
through material, action, thought and image.
– Darin M. White, Guest Curator
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Universal Language: Rex Hausmann
Universal Language will exhibit a water painting performance, slide-show,
photographs, and drawings from a recent sojourn to Beijing and Hong Kong.
These elements explore an interaction the artist had with a calligraphy master
at the Temple of Heaven where he found that across many cultural barriers,
the two were able to bridge their varying cultural experiences by
communicating through brush and line. Additionally, Universal Language
will include an installation entitled Where There Is Land There Is War,
equating historical events that occurred at the Boston Common.
Signs… Jimmy Greenfield
We live in a visual world of signs that guide, dictate, and define social norms.
Many of these are culturally specific, but others are universally understood
and form the basis of a symbolic language readable the world over. The signs
depicted in this show are meant as warnings about the effects of unbridled
population growth that puts ever-increasing pressure on shrinking natural
resources, the wholesale and indiscriminate destruction of the environment,
and the inevitability of human conflict that will follow. Constructed on
desiccated earth, they are meant to inspire meditation about the future with
the hope that by doing so, humans will somehow rise above their differences
and recognize the extreme challenges ahead. This “evolution of human spirit
and cooperation” is the only process through which we will be able to ensure
and maintain the survival of the living planet.
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Work Example:
Jimmy Greenfield
Blue Planet
cast dirt
2007 ©
30″x 66″x 6″