ANDREA BÜTTNER, ALEJANDRO CESARCO, JASON DODGE, VAN HANOS

Art can and has learned much from its own self-examination. It has poked around in its own wake for centuries and will undoubtably continue to do so. The philosophies of art's useful uselessness, its capacity to engender some form of transcendent understanding are happily abundant, to the extent that their tenets are like a tacit pact between all who appreciate art. Art turns the stone of its own history over and over in its hand. It marches forward without fear of obsolescence, redundancy or exhaustion. As it should.

Art also has the capacity to question the world in which it is received, the little utopia it has carved out for itself notwithstanding. A theory of what art can do and what it is incapable of doing is a useful thing to attempt to delineate. The artworks included in this exhibition attempt to do just that - they ask art to measure itself against other methods of understanding our lives and our world. In this pursuit, they engage ideas of belief and doubt, and confess to the ongoing search for meaning and merit.