"Into the Valley of Despair"

April 14 – April 27, 2022

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 14, 2022 I 6:00 – 9:00pm

Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Ave, Brooklyn, NY

To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, please contact macp@sva.edu.

Artists: Florian Aschka & Larissa Kopp, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Kim Kielhofner, Julian Louis Phillips, Mia Raadik and Anna Witt

Curated by Carina Martinez

This showcase of six artists’ practices contemplates the overlapping territories of psychological discomfort and truth-seeking. The exhibition’s title refers to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a graph developed in psychology that demonstrates a type of cognitive bias in which a person’s overestimation of knowledge of a given subject corresponds to a sense of overconfidence. The bottom of the sharply dipped curve is labeled “the valley of despair,” indicating the point at which one may become disillusioned by the realization that they know very little about something they once believed they understood. The "un-selfing" quality of the works in "Into the Valley of Despair" suggests that, rather than turn away from the destabilizing truth of one's limited purview, embarking on a winding journey through the valley with openness—waiting, listening, experimenting—might be the most profound path that one could take in pursuit of sustainable knowledge and transformative justice. Paying attention to the contradictions that exist within and around us, the exhibition intends to consider how the valley of despair can reinvent itself as an oasis of repair.

For more information, please visit https://carinamartinez.cargo.site/itvod

Exhibition

MA Curatorial Practice Year-End Exhibitions

Pfizer Building

Reception