The Trace Absence/ Presence- A Group Exhibition | Page 7

An introduction by Peggy Cyphers:
French philosopher and literary critic Jacques Derrida uses the term trace in
literary criticism, to describe the remnant of all non-present meanings, sounds,
or written markings on the page-- especially in the sense that features are
identifiable only by the absence of other features. The act of mark making in
painting and drawing leaves behind its trace, the sign for everything elusive, the
evidence of everything it is not, as a visible impression of the indeterminacy of
space and thought impression. Both painting and poetry leave in their path clues
that something has been present, a spark, a tag, in a just-barely detectable
amount, a suggestion of quality.
Can technology claim such a position? Can evolution into the ultimate heights of
technological advancement, leave behind its trace? Painting and poetry embody
that indeterminate meaning as space and thought. In their ambiguity, painting
and poetry create new thought connections, reflecting unseen future histories
and memory.
Wallace Stevens first delivered "Relations Between Poetry and Painting" as a
lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1951. In this essay, Stevens
explored the parallel attributes of poetry and painting. Wallace's thesis is based
on the notion that, in an age of disbelief, the arts in general are a
"...compensation for what has been lost." "...men feel that the imagination is the
next greatest power to faith, the reigning prince." Because poetry and painting
operate at the juncture between imagination and reality, these arts assume a
prophetic stature and become a "...vital assertion of self in a world where
nothing but the self remains, if that remains."