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WHAT IS META FOR?: In a contemplative overview of afterthought, some important nuggets surface in the most refreshing review of .meta to date (closes today, 12-5PM). Art Scatter’s Barry Johnson opines through the thick of it. ALSO: Don’t miss the fair mention of McMinnville’s quaint wine country featured in this week’s NY Times!
The Oregonian’s D.K. Row mentioned .meta in his Shows of Note in Friday’s A&E. As the Linfield College Art Gallery takes steps with me, please save the date: Wednesday, November 12 (4PM). This will be my curatorial/gallery talk with the public.
McMINNVILLE, OR: Prominent regional and international artists will be featured in ‘.meta‘, an upcoming group exhibit at Linfield College. Artist/Curator TJ Norris will realize the third and final incarnation of his “themeless” exhibitions. Both of the previous curatorial projects in this series, grey|area (Guestroom Gallery, 2006) and invisible.other (NAAU, 2007), focused on underlying thematic sub-contexts, exploring the origins of ideas, not complete thoughts. .meta continues to serve this push concept by furthering the plausible misconceptions of double entendre, cultural baggage, broken architecture, dissonance/atonality - all packaged with a generous undercurrent of social/political commentary. This exhibition will run through November 29 at the Linfield Art Gallery of the James F. Miller Fine Arts Center. An opening reception will be held Wednesday, October 15 at 6PM and an curator’s talk on Wednesday, November 12 at 4PM, both within the gallery.
“Over the past three years I’ve developed exhibitions from digested bits and pieces of found ideas. These flash moments are scrawled on receipts, shorthanded into my iPhone and sometimes based on the reliance on my own memory. Big ideas are often prefaced by even more fleeting minutiae. While building these exhibitions much became divisible through the power of imperceptible suggestion - both philosophical and rhythmic. As such .meta becomes a richer examination, drawing to some form of non-linear, barely narrative conclusion in this series.
If there were a theme at play it would be “subtext”. It’s always there, in fine print and in short, defines our technical and convenient day-to-day. The prefix ‘meta’ in its colloquial use (metamorphosis, metadata) has an instant association to fascinating phenomena. The more I realized it, the more the quest became a game of such associations to origins, a ‘chicken & the egg’ scenario. As a group exhibition of work, diverse artists were sought, who each confront the stoicism of incomplete thoughts or the sly double entendre head on. Here exists this sense of longing, of awkward limbo, like a deer caught in headlights. In ‘.meta’ you will find work that is wry, socially political and ambiguous at first. Perhaps the offering of clues muses best about the confines and construct of why we exist in the universe at all, complete with our mortal faults. Or take an extra moment to read between the lines, and what at first may seem abstract, could possibly contain the essence of something much more forbidden, or even ludicrous.”
- TJ Norris, Summer 2008
The exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 12-5PM. The gallery will be closed 11/26 & 27. To reach the gallery from 99W, turn east on Keck Drive in south McMinnville. The art gallery is located in Building B. See Campus Map. Miller Fine Arts Center is number 56. For more information, call 503-883-2804 or visit the site.
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Curating Fragments of Broken Ideas
by Regina Hackett
Seattle Post Intelligencer/Art To Go
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