Opening reception: Friday November 7, 6-9 pm
Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flushing Ave. Maspeth, NY, 11378
November 7-30
Sorry Archive is pleased to present And the Villagers Never Liked You Anyway, an archaeological excavation of a 10’x10’ bed of dirt overseen by Dr. Ulf Hueber. The space is gridded into 10 plots, each with its own curator. The plots act as experimental test pits* for heterogeneous creative practices.
Exhibitions are historical sites: they reveal with varying degrees of transparency the events and personalities that produced them. A wide range of curatorial perspectives are situated here within the same set of physical constraints. The objects that emerge are not emblems. They are substances articulated over time and forced into tight quarters, and their materiality cannot be ignored.
Sorry Archive’s scientific approach to this exhibition aims to reorient viewers in their relationship to art objects. Viewers become excavators, grounded in the real, negotiating strata of cause and effect. Yet they are faced with an array of microcosmic histories and impossible mythologies. There can be no endpoint of knowledge gathered from this paradoxical dig, where factual time is altogether disturbed. New works fall into seeming ruin. Gaps in knowledge pock all surfaces with expanses of the unknowable. This site is populated with artifacts of the future, a reverse archaeology of the present. ▩
* A small excavation unit dug to learn what the depth and character of the stratum might be, and to determine more precisely which strata contain artifacts and other material remains.
Curators and Artists:
99¢ Plus is a storefront gallery, studio and store. Simran Johnston
Aeaeae Gallery is a nomadic location for solo and group shows. Matthew Speedy
Chris Romero is a curator. Desiree Leary
Just In Time is a viral support group. [Names withheld]
Packet is a biweekly art publication. Anthony Cudahy, Bridget Collins, Chris Nosenzo, Christine Zhu, Ian Lewandowski, Nicole Reber
SIGNAL is a gallery located in Brooklyn. Anna K. Miller
Sorry Archive is a platform for alter egos' exhibitions. Adam Ledford, Alexandra Lombard, Cara Marie Piazza, Carbon Therrien, Carmel Dunlap, Chris Milic, Reade Bryan, Reid Strelow, Sasha Cohen, Saul Schisler, Sophy Naess, Yasunari Izaki
Vanessa Thill is an artist, curator, and writer. Alexandra Lerman, Laura Miller, Tai Yin Ho
Where is a semi-public, high-security shipping container and publishing project. Lucy Hunter, R. Lyon
curated by Sorry Archive