AN ECSTASY BEYOND LANGUAGE
May 13 - June 28, 2021
Online Exhibition
Participating Artists: Bobby Brooks, Stanley Brown, Anthony Bryant, Jerri Burks, Shawna Campbell, Dennis Cenzer, Lewis Foster, Eric Green, Ronald Griggs, Rodney Hudson, Susan Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Mario Magget, Keisha Miller, Ivory McKinley and Debbie Osteen
"An Ecstasy Beyond Language" takes its name from a description the poet and writer Hanif Abdurraqib gave on the podcast On Being, about intentionally nonsensical language within forms of creative expression. Speaking about the musician Little Richard, Hanif describes his lyrics in "Tutti Frutti" as driven by an ecstasy beyond language, both enraptured and irreverent. For PASC’s inaugural exhibition we are adapting Hanif's description to describe the broader role artwork plays as a communication method beyond the linguistic, verbal, logical and the normal. Art is an embodied and emotive way to manifest our experience of the world, which never demands comprehensibility.
This understanding of art as an open form of communication is particularly important within the context of our PASC studio program, for here the studio represents a space of potential where artists use art to openly express themselves when other, written and verbal, forms of communication are sometimes less accessible. Or perhaps for a better description of art’s purpose we should defer to the immortal Little Richard who said it best, “a wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom”!
In this inaugural show studio staff have highlighted a selection of some of the best work being produced across our two in-person studios and our virtual art studio. This exhibition also launches our online schedule of shows that will be premiering every other month, the next to open on July 8, 2021. With every following online exhibition, we are using this platform to bring in new perspectives from guest curators invited to curate artworks for each show, as well as bring in new audiences who will follow these curators visions.
In addition to our first online exhibition this date also marks the launch of our entire web gallery/store for the PASC program, where additional artwork by artists in this show, and artists not included, can be viewed and purchased on the ARTISTS page of our website. With all sales PASC artists will receive 60% of the sale with the additional 40% returning to the studio to cover art materials and overhead costs.
