VOLKSEMPFÄNGER: ARTWORKS BY dAVID K.: EXHIBITION: WORKING IN WONDER, WALSH GALLERY

20110110

EXHIBITION: WORKING IN WONDER, WALSH GALLERY

Working in Wonder

Walsh Gallery, Seton Hall University
January 18 – February 11, 2011
Opening Reception: January 27^th, 2011

Symposium: Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet, February 5^th, 2011, 10:00AM

Working in Wonder” includes artwork in various media by artists that have been inspired by the Curiosity Cabinet, a historical era of collecting occurring between 1500 and 1700. The exhibit explores the connection between man-made and natural objects or artificialia and naturalia.

Excerpt from exhibition catalogue:

"David K.Thompson forms analagous comparisons in Compendium: Ceci n'est pas une Coquille, which expose the farcical nature of truth and fact. Like Osti and Perrin, Thompson works subversively , with 'official language' to convey his message."

The Volksempfänger ("people's receiver") was a radio receiver developed in 1933 to make radio technology affordable to the general public for propagandistic reasons. Despite the nature of the broadcasts the radio was intended to receive, the evil genius of the device was the efficient nature in which messages could be directly disseminated to the masses. The internet is the modern equivalent of the Volksempfänger - it costs little, it reaches millions of people, and one should be very, very critical of the rubbish emanating from it.