'WAR' National Juried Exhibition
February 15–May 11, 2024
Opening Reception: February 17, 3pm - 5pm
'WAR', three simple letters inspiring terror. War can take many forms, have many acronyms. The 'Just War', a 'Holy War', a 'War on Terror', 'Going on a Warpath', 'Internal Struggle', 'War against Cancer', 'Sparring Partners', 'Trading Barbs'... War may be external and/or internal, always with an element of tension, of conflict. In past and current exhibitions at HVMOCA, and in our long term installation of Thomas Hirschhorn's 'Laundrette', we have looked at how artists take in and then portray the tensions of conflict. We have exhibited works of veterans returning from Afghanistan, tribal wars in Africa, the bloody split of Yugoslavia, nuclear fears, Holocaust memories. Many of the works expressed conflicts between humans, a clash of cultures, environmental challenges.
Responses to our open call were numerous and strong, with jurors struggling to make selections that would present a cohesive, yet broad swath of issues. The basis of the exhibition, though conceived over 9 months ago, has been prescient, with current ever expanding conflicts, simmering anger boiled over, resurfacing hatreds—a world on fire! How artists choose to address this overarching topic, bring attention to the varied innuendos, personal, political, real and imagined, and perhaps offer a level field for discussion, empathy and understanding, this is our hope.
WAR artwork also serves as the inspiration for 2024 Writing the Walls performances in the Studio Theatre in Exile Black Box at HVMOCA. Artists of ‘the word,’ in an open call, are invited to create original poems, monologues, short plays, (5-7 minutes), dance and music to accompany the visual imagery. Performances, dates TBA, are accompanied by an online and print edition of the spoken word works, available for purchase at Hudson Valley MOCA. See Studiotheatreinexile.com for submission particulars.
Artists in the Exhibition:
Timothy Atseff | Brandin Barón | Robert Bibler & Carol Hausser | Trudy Borenstein-Sugiura | Kate Buggeln | Sandra Cavanagh | Jeanne Ciravolo | Sheryl Renee Dobson | Collin Douma | Jorg Dubin | Thomas Faulkner | Debra Friedkin | Houston Fryer | Xia Gao | Karen E. Gersch | Ronald Gonzalez | Jared Hunter | Katherine Jackson | Paul Jeffries | Carla Rae Johnson | Elena Kalman | Simone Kestelman | Leslie Lew | Chiqui Mendoza | Erika Meriaux | Marilyn Mitchell | Tony Moore | Joy Muller-McCoola | Alx Orphant | Michelle Peterlin | Christopher Pouler | Gene Provenzo | Edward L. Rubin | Alfredo Santella | Jeffrey Schrier | Roseanne Spano Swider | Hui Tian | Maxim Timofeev | Edwin Torres | Suprina Troche | Rute Ventura | Les Von Losberg | Brian Walters | Shoaib Wazir | Elizabeth White | Donna Wolfe | Deborah Yaffe | Michael Zansky. (Reggie Amos and JWP (James Perry) were accepted but not on display)