The parallels that can be drawn between art’s search for the elusive Other and man’s search for an equally elusive alien intelligence, metaphorical or otherwise, make sense, given how both are driven by similar impulses, scientific and spiritual and emotional, not least of which is the universal longing for a sense of wonder, if not necessarily truth, and the even more universal longing for contact.
It’s no coincidence that the junk iteration of art, the pulp sci-fic and comic books and B movies ,that has weaned and has been celebrated and exhaustively fetishized to mine their aesthetic by the rotating group of artists - - - Ronald Achacoso, Alex Aguilar, Daphne Aguilar, Felix Bacolor, Dodo Dayao, Raul Rodriguez, Miko Sandejas, Omar Taleon and Cris Villanueva - - -is voracious with alien life, with a densely populated universe, with the ubiquity of cosmic others.
2010: The Year We Make Contact is the third in a trilogy of group shows begun with 2007’s Destroy All Monsters and with 2008’s Them! that meditates on close encounters and all its diametric permutations: evidence and mystery, contact and disconnect, presence and isolation.
2010: The Year We Make Contact runs from Jan 12 to February12 ,2010 at the West Gallery on 48 West Avenue.
Documentation
