Named for an album by inscrutable Brit band Felt, the group exhibition The Splendour of Fear features such apparently disparate artists as filmmaker Stan Brakhage, conceptual artist and YBA (Young British Artist, not Young Boring Asshole), Cerith Wyn Evans, installation sculptor Saul Fletcher, Danish minimalist painter Sergej Jensen, Capitalistic Realist (is there any other kind?) Sigmar Polke, and visual artist JD Williams (not the guy from The Wire). The avowed intent of gathering these conceptual art wizards is one of discomfiture; the beauty that comes with sadness, and vice-versa. That Brakhage — who died of cancer in 2003 as a result of lifelong use in his work of pigments based on coal tar dyes — is present in art only is not missed on anyone gazing deeper into the exhibition's themes. Obsession — that feeling expressed in broad bold colors like the deep red of Williams' neon “Untitled (Red Rose)” (?!) — is another present, prescient subtext, as is the movement of fear in Brakhage's film “Mothlight,” which doubtless will shock all the Lepidopterans in attendance. There's always one at these things.

Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: July 2. Continues through Aug. 22, 2009

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