The latest work by Georgian artist Levan Songulashvili will be among the select exhibits of New York’s annual Black & White National Juried Art Exhibition held by Brooklyn’s largest artist-run organisation later this month. Songulashvili’s work Portrait, from the project THE STYX, has been picked among 110 pieces for the July 29 display aiming to explore the sense of human perception and survival.
“Black and white is where we register motion and, when the cones do not have sufficient light, our rods optimize our survival in the night woods. Black and White intends to explore this underground of survival and few words”, said a preview for the event.
Selected by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Alison Hokanson, the 110 works set for the exhibition were picked from submissions by over 1100 United States-based artists.
Alison Hokanson: “The overall quality and diversity of the submissions was invigorating. First of all, I tried to select works that engaged with the idea of “black and white” in an interesting way. And I looked for pieces that demonstrated a flair for the medium and had an element of the unexpected, formally, emotionally, or in their perspective on the world. Whatever the style, the mood, or the message, that spirit of experimentation and discovery was most important to me.”
In a summary of her selection process Hokanson noted “spirit of experimentation and discovery” were the defining factors in picking the works for the display.
BWAC: “We are privileged to have another of NY’s art elite as our juror, Alison Hokanson, Assistant Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ms. Hokanson holds a BA from Brown University and an MA and PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she studied Minimalism before writing her dissertation on Belgian Realism and Symbolism. Her recent projects include exhibitions on the whaling scenes of Joseph Mallord, William Turner, and on The Met’s collection of Pre-Raphaelite art and design.”
White is organised by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC), an organisation run by over 400 established and emerging artists. Hosting three shows annually, BWAC boasts an art gallery in a US Civil War-era warehouse building that hosts over 18,000 visitors every year.
The Black and White display will run in New York until August 20.
Theme We bathe in the beauty of color and spin thousands of words describing the experience that the cone cells transmit to our brain. In reality, they are not nearly as numerous as our rods, the cells that register light and dark, the black and white of our experience. Our rods are less articulated in language; fewer words are generated to describe that experience. Black and white is primal, the underneath, the foundation, of the opulence of color; black and white is where we register motion and, when the cones do not have sufficient light, our rods optimize our survival in the night woods. Black and White intends to explore this underground of survival and few words.