Location: 77 Gallery
Exhibition Title: "70+ 'Gero-Transcendence'"
Exhibiting Artists: Over 50 artists over the age of 70 exhibit in this massive group show with over 300 pieces, curated by Bill Ramage
Artists' Medium: Mixed Media (across 2 floors of artwork)
Public Exhibition Dates: Saturday, April 6 - Friday, May 17, 2019
Public Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 am - 5 pm
Reception: Saturday, April 6, 2019, from 2 - 4 pm
THE CURATOR'S STATEMENT:
A Gerotranscendent Reflection of a New Era
"A new era emerged around 1950. The life-world of Western Civilization began a startling transformation. It was a transformation that has left a lasting impact on how we think and live. I believe that by 1975, the weltanschauung of Western Civilization was once again reinvented.
If you were born between 1938 and 1949, you became of age between 1949 and 1970. This makes you a participant whether you resisted, were unaware, ignored, bore witness, contributed, or actively participated at the heated core of a culture redefining itself.
Many of us who are now 70+ were the unwittingly iconoclastic youth that challenged, dismantled, and inventively replaced what was a culture that had outlived its viability. The Modern Age, for all its good intentions, great thinkers, and stunning accomplishments, was a spent culture. The youth of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies were "Counter Cultural" not because of their infamous psychedelic obsession with "Drugs, Sex and Rock & Roll," but because they were the impassioned pioneers exploring the uncharted frontier of a new era that ran counter to the prevailing culture.
Even as a teenager in the Fifties I could tell something significant was afoot. Reflecting back, I now believe it was an all-out war. Consider: John Cage's 1951 "Imaginary Landscape #4 for 12 radios," Bill Haley's 1954 "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," Chuck Berry's 1958 "Johnny Be Good," Allen Ginberg's 1955 "Howl," Jack Kerouac's 1957 "On The Road," Williams Burrough's 1958 "Naked Lunch," Rauschenberg's 1951 "White Paintings" and his 1953 "Erased De Kooning," and Jasper Johns' 1955 "Flag." All of these things were new, iconoclastic, revolutionary thoughts, sounds, and images. It was an assault on the cultural status quo. Even though I didn't know what it was, or what it meant, I sensed things were askew . . . different. I had no idea a new era was emerging, or that I was part of it, but if you've ever heard in earnest; "All I am saying, is give peace a chance," you were in it.
The years of 1963, the year Andy Warhol made the "Brillo Box" pieces, and 1964, the year the Beatles came to NYC, were pivotal, as iconoclasm transitioned to invention, a time to change the lexicon, and rethink the whole shebang.
It was a gerotrancendent realization that the most significant thing we brought to the table of a transforming culture was the gift of empathy. In spite of all the insane trials and disastrous tribulations of those twenty-five years, our one true and lasting legacy are the many rewards of the new and inclusive lexicon of cultural empathy.
At age 76, I spend a good deal of time musing about the possibility or the improbability that empathy could ever replace power and wealth as our survival strategy. It seems to work well for dogs."
--- Bill Ramage
During the reception, visitors are also welcome to participate in the International Slow Art Day 2019 by taking in 5 pieces of work slowly.
For more information, contact the77gallery@gmail.com
Free and open to the public.
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Free Community SupperDec 21, 2024, 5 to 6 PM