No Toxic Factor
April 20th, 2016Among the usual crop of gallery openings this past month, there was an exciting pop-up show taking place at Central Booking in the Lower East Side. The pop-up exhibition, titled No Toxic Factor reunited 33 artists who spent the summer of 2011 in the School of Visual Arts Painting and Mixed Media Residency. They have kept in touch since then, and the lasting impact of their experience has led to this exhibition almost five years later.
“No Toxic Factor” at Central Booking in the Lower East Side
No Toxic Factor was an extraordinary event featuring former residents, faculty, and visiting artists from 2011, curated by SVA Residencies own Assistant Director of Special Programs, Keren Moscovitch.
The title and concept of the show rest on the conceit that organizing as a group has an altering effect on the individuals who participate in it, synchronizing them while making them unpredictable. This is observable in social phenomena such as “mass hysteria.”
Video and installation by residency alum Rebecca Kinsey
From the press release:
“ …this exhibition seeks to examine the mass hysteria that can arise amongst highly energized, closely situated individuals. History has thus shown us that large groups of people can generate unpredictable synchronized behaviors that often remain unexplainable by science. Despite suspicions that environmental poisons or other bacterial agents may be at the core of such phenomena, oftentimes these events, when investigated using modern research methods, are shown to have ‘no toxic factor’ involved. This exhibition points to the ambiguity of mass hysteria, suggesting that the line between laughter and psychosis, joy and mania, the rational and the senseless, are innately blurred. Recognizing the destructive forces that lie dormant within all groups, we instead choose to celebrate creativity, community and collaboration.”
The crowd at “No Toxic Factor”; Installation by Majella Dowdican, Residencies alum
No Toxic Factor found an interesting spin on the group show. Framed in such a way, one begins to wonder to what extent individuals are changed by being in a close-knit studio environment like SVA’s Summer Residencies. The claim of the exhibition is that the experience does change the individual, and if that can inspire a strange mania, it can also be generative, collaborative, and a powerful creative force.
“No Toxic Factor” at Central Booking in the Lower East Side
See more of the artists: Residencies alumni Rebecca Kinsey, William Pagano, Liz Flores, Katalina Guerrero, Lorella Palen, Cristina Camacho; and the faculty members Tobi Kahn, Ofri Cnaani, and Ira Richer. Read our review of Ofri Cnaani’s recent exhibition here.