Group exhibition featuring studio mate Scott Albrecht
Con/Text:
Language as Art
Curated by Ginger Shulick Porcella
Con/Text presents works that defy traditional categorization of either visual or literary art. In a world where clear communication is one of the most important foundations of contemporary society, this exhibition will explore the myriad ways we communicate—visually, verbally, electronically, or even through performance or touch.
Language and the visual arts have historically been deeply interconnected.
From early humans creating cave paintings alongside symbolic marks to record events to Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform evolving from pictorial representations into systems for expressing spoken language, visual arts tell stories that sometimes the written word cannot accurately express.
Con/Text presents works that defy traditional categorization of either visual or literary art. In a world where clear communication is one of the most important foundations of contemporary society, this exhibition will explore the myriad ways we communicate—visually, verbally, electronically, or even through performance or touch.
This exhibition includes asemic writing (a wordless, open-semantic form of writing that fuses text and visual art) as well as glossolalia—the vocalization of speech-like syllables that lack recognizable grammar. Con/Text also includes works that incorporate braille, sign language and AI coding, alongside more traditional works of text-based art and literature. All of these works transcend language barriers, allowing anyone to experience them emotionally or aesthetically, bridging the gap between literary writing and visual art, much like abstract expressionism. This expansive exhibition highlights text-based works from the MAH’s art and history collections, as well as contemporary works from artists Scott Albrecht, Kristin Bauer, Francisca Benitez, Peter Madden, and Ned Snider.