More Than Flesh: Embodiment of Abstraction

April 1–April 17, 2010

University of Toronto Art Centre

Valentine Moreno
 
Featuring artists represented in the University of Toronto Collection including: Jean Bridge, Eldon Garnet, Richard Gorman, Alex Javier, Deborah Koenker, Rick McCarthy, Michael Merrill, Ron Martin, and Saul Williams, this exhibition explores ideas of the body as an unknown and mysterious place in which reason, culture, experiences, emotions, and spirituality are inseparably intertwined with the organic quality of the human condition.
 
Many belief systems describe our minds and spirits as being trapped by the material body. René Descartes (1596-1650) argued that the body and the mind are two entirely different and separate things. These ontological notions are deeply embedded in western religious and philosophical traditions. But what if that which appears to be divided is actually one unique whole? Your body: composed of flesh and the entire abstract dimension of yourself.
 
Science has shown that consciousness, thought, and feeling would not exist without the brain operating as an organic part of the functioning body. What we perceive through the body affects our thoughts and emotions. At the same time, what we think and feel affects our bodily movements and expressions. After acknowledging such an intimate and entangled connection, is it possible to keep the body and the mind apart?

Art Exhibit

Contemporary art, Embodiment, Flesh