Bureau for Open Culture

Exact Imagination is about the experience of art, however one may have it, via gallery exhibitions, social engagements, books, reproductions, academics, or simply by being alive. Taking its inspiration and title from the Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor Adorno and his analysis of aesthetic experience in which he argues that subjective and objective forces collide to determine a viewer’s perceptual reception of art-—how it makes them feel, what they take away from it, what they draw up inside of them to relate to it—-this exhibition includes art that encourages both concrete and immaterial aesthetic explorations.

With these ideas in mind, Exact Imagination investigates the authority of the institution and its effect on the viewer. It provides conditions for experiencing the way institutional devices leverage reactions to art in divergent forms of encounters, either by inspiring an internal aesthetic response to art objects (as does any exhibition or work of art) or by requiring from viewers literal participation in social exchanges.

The artists in this exhibition examine with criticism and humor the institutionalization of art, exhibition-making, academic production, artistic resistance, and a wide range of other influences that affect how people get access to, read about, study, view, reflect upon, and bring forth an imaginative response to art.

Gaylen Gerber with BANK, Andrea Fraser, David Ireland, Christian Jankowski, Louise Lawler, N55, David Ording and Red76, Backdrop/Exact Imagination, 2008
latex on canvas, various media, dimensions variable
courtesy of the artist
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Christian Jankowski, Flock, 2002
DVD, 10 minutes
courtesy of the artist, Maccarone, Inc., New York, and Klosterfelde, Berlin
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N55, Art and Reality, 1996
site-specific installation, cut vinyl text, 16 x 28 feet
courtesy of the artists
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ART AND REALITY

Could one imagine art which had nothing to do with persons?
Could one imagine art which had nothing to do with other persons?
Could one imagine art which had nothing to do with concrete situations?
Could one imagine the existence of concrete situations without the existence of things?
Could one imagine concrete situations with persons in which the behaviour of persons had no significance?

There is no meaning in talking about art without imagining persons, their behaviour, things and concrete situations. When one wants to talk about art, one must therefore talk about: persons and their behaviour with other persons and things in concrete situations. As a precondition that these persons are actually practising this behaviour at all, one has to imagine that they are experiencing it as meaningful. From this follows that one has to talk about: persons and their meaningful behaviour with other persons and things in concrete situations. There is reason to presume that this always stands when one talks about art. Otherwise one would be able to imagine:

art which has nothing to do with persons
art which no one finds meaningful and which therefore has no significance
art which has nothing to do with the behaviour of persons
art which has nothing to do with other persons
art which has nothing to do with things
art which has nothing to do with concrete situations
art which has nothing to do with persons and their behaviour, meaningfulness, other persons, things and concrete situations.

Therefore we now know that:
when one talks about art one must always talk about:

Persons and their meaningful behaviour with other persons and things in concrete situations

or about corresponding factors with the same significance and the same necessary relations.

This knowledge enables us to talk about art in a way that makes sense, and without allowing habitual conceptions, social conventions and concentrations of power to be of decisive importance to our experiences.

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Louise Lawler, Big, 2002/2003
cibachrome mounted on museum box, 52.75 x 46.5 inches
courtesy of Dominique Lévy and Dorothy Berwin
image courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York
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Andrea Fraser, A Visit to the Sistine Chapel, 2005
DVD, 12 minutes
courtesy of the artist and Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York
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David Ireland, Untitled (capillary work), 1988
capillary action work with bassinet, wire and fabric dye, 40 x 27 x 22 inches
courtesy of Christopher Grimes Gallery, Los Angeles
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BANK, White Cube, NY, 1999, from The Bank Fax-Bak Service series (detail)
ink on paper, 8.25 x 11.75 inches
courtesy of BANK archive, London
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BANK, Voicemail messages to Fax-Baks, Cristenrose Gallery, NY, 1998; Feigen Contemporary, NY, 1998
answerphone message transferred to digital file, 1:29 minutes
courtesy of BANK archive, London
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David Ording , After, 2005–07
oil on canvas, 7 x 10 feet
courtesy of the artist and Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston
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Red76, Free Art History, 2008
video and fliers, community-wide distribution

Franklin's VDC Copy Center, 2008
1124 North High, Columbus, Ohio
courtesy of the artists

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