main gallery: september 7 to october 20

by Robert Thurmer

This exhibition concerns itself with the ‘Ineffable Object,’ a peculiar kind of thing: part art object, part document, part trace-evidence, part relic; an object that is interesting, even compelling, often mysterious and enigmatic, almost always difficult to describe and, in some cases, difficult even to understand.

The best way to describe the phenomenon of the Ineffable Object is in the retelling of a skit performed by Steve Martin, and Dan Akroyd in a Saturday Night Live episode from the early eighties. The two are looking into the camera quizzically, asking with increasingly charged emotions: "what the **** is that?" The audience never finds out what 'that' is -- the charged question is never resolved, but the point is made. The two are looking at the Ineffable Object!

The Ineffable Object in the context of this exhibition is shorthand for the remnants, documentary evidence, or even 'manifestation' of conceptual art. Conceptual art, the way we understand it today, informs the production of all contemporary art objects, even forms of art that do not claim for themselves, even remotely, to be conceptual in nature. All contemporary art, without exception, must be understood relative to the kinds of lessons that we as a culture have learned from the conceptual art movements of the 20th Century and of today. However, conceptual art in its own right is easily misunderstood, misinterpreted, misrepresented, dismissed, and often overlooked, in part because much of it is non-visual in nature, and decidedly intellectual -- a virtue not generally prized in North America.

In this exhibition, we examine a small sampling of what might be called conceptual art. In particular, we focus on objects that are in some way conceptual, and in other ways very much formal, and physical, either in appearance or presentation. However, what all of the objects in this exhibition share is the intellectual, visual, and aesthetic puzzle they present to the viewer -- a puzzle such as the ineffable nature of the relationship between the formal attributes of an object and its meaning, or semantic content.

For the purposes of this exhibition, the ineffable object is an art object, and yet it is somewhat ambiguous - all depending on point of view, context, intent of the artist, and the personal experience of the viewer. Perhaps because of this special status of the ineffable object, there are certain questions that present themselves: What are we to see? What is 'Art' about it? What does it mean? Why should we care? These are the questions that we should ask of all art objects. However, these are the questions that we invariably ask of the ineffable object.

In this exhibition, we show just one single work by each of 11 artists: Jeffrey Abt, Tom Aprile, Morgan Cahn, Patsy Kline, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, d.a. levy, Carlos Navarrete, David Pohl, Stefan Romer, Lawson Smith, and Karen B. Swallow. There are works of art that are relatively traditional - painting, drawing, sculpture, film, installation, poetry -- as well as objects that are not necessarily recognizable artworks -- documents, propositions, remnants, and ephemera. What all of these works have in common, however, is that they are visually compelling; they are not necessarily comprehensible in a literal, rational sense; and that they challenge our understanding of the nature and purpose of 'Art.'

Robert Thurmer
Art Gallery Director
Cleveland State University