Appointment in Samarra (Dystopia Now) Exhibition

About

An exhibition of four past and present ex-patriot American artists will be presented at the Bronx Art Space. Prize-winning artists with significant exhibition records, they have received such prestigious awards as the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Henry Luce Foundation grant, the Fulbright Scholarship and the MacDowell Fellowship as well as many film festival and art competition prizes. Their work is held in numerous public and private collections in Asia, Europe and North America. 

The exhibition Appointment in Samarra addresses a contemporary world spun out of control. We are bombarded daily with images and stories of disaster and tragedy of every possible origin. The work on exhibit includes videos by Kasumi, photographs by Michael McCarthy, paintings by Jonathan Shimony and prints by Rob Stupay. Collectively, their work stands as a set of questions, not only about this troubling state of world affairs but also about the very notion of knowledge and understanding. The work offers no solutions and even raises doubts about our comprehension of events. Their stories remain disturbingly incomplete. Things seem wrong, perhaps terribly wrong, but we are uncertain of what exactly we are being shown, much less how to redress the apparent problems surrounding us in today’s world.