South Bay Contemporary in San Pedro has a fascinating new exhibit running through October 10th. Via Negativa: The Transcendence of the unReal explores the idea of clarifying religious experience and language through knowledge of what God is not, rather than what He is. Visually and texturally stunning, the theme behind the show adds heft to works that individually show substantial perceptive power.
Guest curated by the Cerritos College Art Gallery, curator James MacDevitt, avoids a direct depiction of what is unknowable, instead presenting a swirling enigma in lieu of the concrete world. While the entire exhibition bristles with visual excitement, some standouts include untitled wood and neon pieces by Lisa Schulte, Shannon Willis’ fascinating sculpture created with ping pong balls and LED colored light strips, “Spiritual Aspiration,’ the single channel video “Wind and Water Study’ by David O’Brien, and the spidery wires of Christopher Pate’s “Emergent Action.”
MacDevitt explains the roots of the show. “When offered a space as guest curator here, I decided to extend the Cerritos show I curated with an exhibit that, like the show there, also attempts to know and to understand the unknowable.” At Cerritos, MacDevitt says the exhibition “tried to visualize big data, the artists worked with ideas like mystic diagrams. Here we are looking at apophatic theology – knowing something by what it’s not. The artists use issues of tangential stimulation and play around with animate objects. Ther’s a vitalist energy that expresses both science and religion without being dogmatic about one or another. Both, after all, are attempts to know. They are just different strategies for knowing.”
Perhaps, where the intersection of science and religion meet, art is created. Judge for yourselves, and enjoy an exhibit that makes you think about deep questions, but is also quite a lot of fun.
South Bay Contemporary is located at 401 Mesa Street, 3rd floor, in San Pedro.
- Genie Davis; Photos by Jack Burke