The Invisible Horde

UNIT 1
FACEBOOK EVENT


ake Worth exhibition space UNIT 1 is pleased to announce the exhibition: The Invisible Horde, featuring work by over 30 of the area's most exciting and dynamic artists.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS


Alexander Krivosheiw
Amy Gross
Andrew Gilmore
Anna Girgis
Charles Xavier Bane III
Chris Riccardo
Craig McInnis
Dan Leahy
David Alan Sincavage
David Olivera
Don Fils
Jacques de Beaufort
JaFleu
Jill Lavetsky
Juan Doncel
Karla Walter
Kristin Miller Hopkins
Lisa Rockford
Nick Paliugh
Norma Cockwell
Nune Asatryan
Reinier Gamboa
Rolando Chang Barrero
Sam Perry
Sarah La Pierre
Sibel Kocabasi
Skip Measelle
Sonya Gaskell
Valyn Calhoun
Yury Darashkevich

Curatorial Statement

There are many uncertainties in this world, but some rare truths hold inviolate against even the most Heisenbergian doubts: right now, at this moment, a gamer is sitting alone in a dark room several hours deep into a MMORPG trance state oblivious to the deliberations that we may have towards his/her existence or absence. Perhaps like Schrödinger's cat, we should leave the poor guy alone lest upon cracking the basement door we are treated to the sight of a desiccated corpse still slouching in that X Video Rocker surrounded by a mountain of empty “hot pocket” boxes and Mountain Dew 1 liters. Let’s not tempt fate.

Indeed, we are all too familiar with the scourge of game-play and the devastation that it has wrecked upon a whole generation of our youth and dudes who are thirty-six but still live in their parents garage. Just about everyone these days knows someone that knows someone who is friends with somebody who heard about a Gamer lost in the throes of addiction, more dead than alive, with only faint memories of Florida Supercon 2010 tethering his addled brain to some moment of life that was not lived in the narcotic haze of simulated reality.

And so then I would call your attention to another unseen Horde, silently working in a twilight zone of fantasy and reality that approximates more or less the virtual solitude and hypnagogic mindscape of our unfortunate Gamer. This Horde lives on a razors edge of narcissism and self-loathing, turning the shit of reality into glittering jewels through some strange alchemical self-immolation. We call these people Artists, and there are actually a lot of them in the area despite their lack of immediate visibility. What is clear is that their numbers are growing and that the problem is only getting worse. Day by day one more of them starts a kick-starter campaign for his skinned knee because like musicians, and other hipster types-artists live in contempt of the ordinary world of day jobs and health care benefits, and so without the largesse of their rich girlfriends or the last trickling dregs of that once formidable trust-fund, would mostly likely die in large numbers, washing up en masse on the sands of our beautiful South Florida beaches.

But one should not underestimate this Invisible Horde, and it would be wise to "tread lightly" if the contours of their collective vision has not yet been fully concretized by the cultural affirmations of a local art scene, which in its extant form is clearly lacking the cojones to take this problem head on. And so it is in the spirit of, well perhaps Florida Supercon 2010, that UNIT1 exhibitions presents to you the following selection of artists working right here right now.

In all seriousness, they are formidable group of creators, and only some of them have skinned knees or rich girlfriends. For the most part they are hard working citizens; dreamers and visionaries who inhabit a world that is attempting at all turns to extinguish the creative spark that keeps them going. People who are not artists don’t realize that life for an artist is always lived thinking about being somewhere else- in the studio instead of behind the counter at Nordstroms for example. The challenge is not only to make something amazing, but just to make something period. And then if god forbid you are successful, to keep that magic going and going year after year through the thick and thin of a capricious market. And so it is then nothing less than a small miracle that in one exhibition so many masterpieces have been assembled for consideration. Turns out Schrödinger's cat was alive and well. I don’t like cats though because they destroy furniture-which is why I want you to buy all this art because clearly I can’t keep it and I’m not going to start a fucking Kickstarter.

Jacques de Beaufort
Director UNIT1 exhibitions