CCS BARD

I Need You to be There, Angles of Incidence, and The Volatile Real are three exhibitions curated by the first-year graduate students using works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection on permanent loan to the Center for Curatorial Studies.

All three exhibitions are concerned with the problems we face living in a society assaulted with images and information constructed by art, advertising, television, film and radio. This media glut produces a situation in which a straightforward understanding of reality is challenged. How does this affect our sense of what is real and unreal? Do we retain a clear understanding of our own reality, our own individuality? The works in these exhibitions embody absence, reflection, direct address, and fiction. The artists employ these means to frame, imply, or evoke specific conditions for viewing and interacting with artworks. Sometimes we are invited to complete a narrative, while at other times the work seems to exclude us entirely. Surprisingly confrontational, some of these works challenge our own autonomy. We navigate a dynamic and volatile reality, negotiating our own existence through a shifting deluge of identity, information, and experience.