Seeking Complexity

David Becker, Deborah Bright, Jane Fine, Bo Joseph, Brian Kenny, AJ Liberto, Andy Ness, & Harrison Tenzer

Opening Reception:
Saturday, October 4, 3-6PM

Complexity Thrills!  Listen to Bach’s Musical Offering (1747): a dazzling collection of canons, fugues, and a trio sonata, all spun from a single theme given to him by Frederick the Great. Each piece unfolds like a puzzle of sound. To the listener it feels both cerebral and devotional—an intricate web of voices where secrecy, revelation, and transcendence are heard at once. The sensation is addictive, and once immersed in its realms, the desire for stripped-down sounds can seem almost absurdly pleasure-averse.

In fact, much of our visual world is complex beyond comprehension—whether wandering through a woodland or navigating a shopping mall. While many artists embrace reductive strategies, what about the “more is more” makers, who prove the old adage that “less is a bore”?

Visual art has always had a complicated relationship with complexity as a self-affirming value. In studio critiques, graduate students are often teased for adding too much, with the snarky question: “Is that blue filigree absolutely necessary?” Few have the confidence to reply, “Yes—because it gives me pleasure, and I assume it will please others as well.” Different forms of complexity resurface across movements and mediums, whether abstract or representational. One might ask where the through line lies between James Rosenquist’s F-111, with its sliced-up, overlaid imagery, and Sol LeWitt’s most intricate graphite wall drawings. Is mathematically based overproduction related to image-saturated collage? Do the meditative static of one and the proliferating density of the other ultimately blur into a similar experiential state?

The seven artists in this exhibition each add layers of complexity in ways I find deeply pleasurable. Ask yourself, as you move through their work: would you enjoy it more if a few elements were stripped away? Or would you prefer the complexity dialed even higher? Is there a point at which pleasure tips into exhaustion? And when you leave the gallery, will you crave a white, empty room—a visual fast to recover from a visual feast?