“Aporia”

“Aporia”

For an exhibition that consists entirely of wall labels without a single piece of art in sight, “Aporia” is surprisingly lively. When curators Greta Byrum and Annabel Daou asked 15 artists to propose an impossible work of art—an aporia is an insolvable paradox—imaginations ran wild. Materials include vampires, outer space, the ocean and a particle accelerator. The public, the Global Satellite Network and the Kennebunkport Junior League number among the lenders. (There’s also a podcast audio tour, a fittingly invisible guide).

A few of the artists indulge in philosophical speculation, but most make the impossible surprisingly concrete. Rochelle Feinstein, whose work inspired the exhibition, suggests an installation from her series “I Made a Terrible Mistake,” which she began when Michael Jackson apologized for dangling his baby from a hotel window. Feinstein would place 30 paintings, 30 disco balls and five videos inside the White House, in hopes of inspiring President Bush to acknowledge his own errors. Aaisha proposes a walk through an Islamic nation as veiled assistants slather her naked body in nectar; covered in butterflies, she would await her inevitable punishment. Daniel Bozhkov proposes sending a rocket full of stingless bees into orbit, while Jim Skuldt would endlessly dismantle and rebuild an arena stage.

The impossible projects not on view in “Aporia” dismantle the apparatus of art-as-spectacle and grandiose gallery shows. As Messaouda Bouras points out in the exhibition’s catalog, the most important aporia (from a philosophical standpoint) is the impossibility of nothing, an idea beautifully reflected in how full the empty gallery really is.—Elisabeth Kley