perspectives in fine art series

Deceptive Distance

This group show brings together six Twin Cities based artists whose work engages with the consequences of September 11, 2001. This now distant day continues to shape the everyday reality of people living and fighting in the far-away theaters of war, Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to the deceptive distance of time and geography, an emotional distance remains intact despite our most well-intentioned efforts to empathize, to imagine what “it” must be like for “them”—those less fortunate ones who fight or bear the impact of armed antagonism.

In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag writes, “‘we’—this ‘we’ is everyone who has never experienced anything like what they went through—don’t understand. We don’t get it. We truly can’t imagine what it was like. We can’t imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes. Can’t understand, can’t imagine” (125f.). The horror of war, in Sontag’s words, outpaces imagination and empathy. Nonetheless, the six artists in this show engage with both personal and cultural realities irrevocably altered in the aftermath of September 11. Their work commemorates, imagines, reaches out and reflects on the deceptive distance of war, bringing it closer and making it more intimate in the process.

View Deceptive Distance, an essay by Curator Christina Schmid       
Read the651.com interview with Christina Schmid              
Read Secrets of the City article       
View Star Tribune article
View Women’s Press article

About Perspectives in Fine Art Series

The mission of the CVA Perspectives in Fine Art Series is to enhance the understanding and appreciation of nationally recognized contemporary fine art through exhibition for students and audiences of all levels of awareness and understanding.

See Past Perspectives in Fine Art Series

Image Credit

Harriet Bart
Eulogy, 2010 – 2011
acrylic and thread on canvas, army litter, army canvas bag, book