EXHIBITIONS:
77 East 3rd St.
/virtu.all
UPCOMING EVENTS:
January 18, 6pm
@77 E 3rd St
@77 E 3rd St
January 23, 6pm
@119 Hester St
@119 Hester St
Cait McCormack Solo Exhibition Opening Reception
OPEN CALLS
Contact
Information
77 East 3rd St.
/virtu.all
Cait McCormack Solo Exhibition Opening Reception
OPEN CALLS
Contact
Information
FEBRUARY 1 - 26, 2025
SEEING WHAT ISN’T THERE
Curatorial Team
Ciaran Short
Victoria Gray
Ciaran Short
Victoria Gray
Exhibiting Artists
Breanna Martins
Cassie Taylor
Eden Chinn
Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov
Irem Gürel
Lynne Breitfeller
Matt Rosenbaum
Mishal Junaid
Onaje Grant-Simmonds
Peter Shellenberger
Ryan Ketterer
Sylvie Mayer
Terra Keck
Travis Childers
Breanna Martins
Cassie Taylor
Eden Chinn
Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov
Irem Gürel
Lynne Breitfeller
Matt Rosenbaum
Mishal Junaid
Onaje Grant-Simmonds
Peter Shellenberger
Ryan Ketterer
Sylvie Mayer
Terra Keck
Travis Childers
Opening Reception
February 1, 6pm - 9pm
February 1, 6pm - 9pm
OPEN CALL THEME:
Art can manipulate imagination, materializing what’s unseen and conjuring images that exist in the mind’s eye. Art can haunt people, making them question their perceptions and sanity. In the presence of shadows, ghosts, magic, sleight of hand, or run of the mill trickery, the viewer seeks answers and understanding. This visual ambiguity asks the viewer to look deeper and notice what may not be immediately apparent. In this process of examination and reflection, stories and connections are often found that were never there to begin with. Art can become a form of alchemy, using a physical or tangible product to influence the metaphysical.
Traditionally, in visual art, the eye is given preferential treatment as the beholder of images. Yet through physical manipulation, different senses can be engaged, triggering both optical and multisensory illusions. Based on Leon Battista Alberti’s Renaissance theory of visual perspective, literary critic and poet William Empson devised seven types of ambiguity: (1) shadowy amorphousness; (2) unexpected unification of signs and symbols; (3) metaphor and substitution; (4) optical illusions that trick the viewer’s senses into completing an image; (5) simultaneous presence of recognizable signs or symbols that are visually interchangeable or oscillate with one another; (6) individual images that when overlaid produce new linkages; and (7) disjunctive or uncanny representations removing objects/people from their expected contexts (Empson, 1966). Artists can lean into such representational anomalies and experiment with how far they can push the bounds of imagination and our perceptual limits to produce unsettling, haunting, and confounding imagery.
During the month of February, All Street Gallery will be hosting an exhibition at our East Village location (77 East Third Street) entitled seeing what isn’t there. We conducted an open call for art of all mediums that speak to themes of ambiguity, illusion, shadows, ghostly figures, and haunting images. We especially encouraged artists with a distinct interest in capturing transitional phases – such as day to night, life to death, or visible to invisible – to apply.
Part of All Street’s mission is to increase accessibility to the arts, so we encourage artists of all experience levels and backgrounds to apply. We are also open to community programming ideas whether in the form of performances, readings, etc. during evening hours in support of the exhibition. For any questions please contact gallery@allstnyc.com.
References:
Empson, William. (1966). Seven Types of Ambiguity. New Directions.