Reminder: Hair and Skin, organized by Isaac Lyles @ Derek Eller Gallery opens: Wednesday, July 10, 6-8pm

Daniel Gordon

Hair and Skin
Organized by Isaac Lyles
July 9 - August 15, 2013
Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 10, 6-8pm

Developing research on mirror neurons and neuroesthetics suggests an alternative model of vision. Mirror neurons, found in the human brain, are the subject of recent research on "physical empathy"; the ability to physically respond to, for example, someone breaking their leg or a couple having sex. The brain actually simulates the experience of what it sees. In other words: 'What I see, I feel.' This model argues for the importance of empathy in vision, an embodied approach anticipated by phenomenology and now buttressed by neuroscience.

With this in mind, Hair and Skin presents the body in extremes to explore the potential of physical empathy and bodily resonance. My dissatisfaction with what David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese characterize as "the primacy of cognition in responses to art" is the impetus for this exhibition. The work is visceral, it connects to our phenomenal consciousness, speaks to corporeal experience, and the unruliness of desire. The centrality of the body, the means of communicating its vicissitudes, and the effects (physical, emotional) of this communication are the subject of Hair and Skin.
-Isaac Lyles

Works by:

Hans Bellmer
Louise Bourgeois
Günter Brus
Borden Capalino
David Dupuis
Daniel Gordon
Aneta Grzeszykowska 
Kineko Ivic
Lionel Maunz
Maria Petschnig
Chloe Piene
Adam Putnam
Aura Rosenberg
Davina Semo
Bobbi Woods
Rona Yefman

LINK