Causey Contemporary presents Coincidental Opposites, a group exhibition featuring works by: R.L. Croft, Michel Demanche, Jordan Eagles, Cui Fei, Young Kim, Norman Mooney, Shen Chen and Zane York.

Coincidental Opposites comes from the latin phrase “coincidentia oppositorum” and is a term used to describe the polarities or yin and yang of the universe. Latin is not however the first language in which these terms were coined but rather in archaic Chinese when the 6th century B.C. philosopher, Lao Tze began to suggest that “there can be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.” The Christian and Jewish Mystic traditions again put forth this philosophy in the 15th century with writers such as Nicholas of Cusa who voiced the concept as the “unity of contrarieties overcoming opposition by convergence without destroying or by merely blending the constituent elements.” The alchemists of the period quickly adapted the term as synonymous with their fifth process, conjunction. Later thinkers such as Meister Elkhart and G.W. F. Hegel further stretched the definition to hold that presumed polarities in thought don’t exclude one another but are actually necessary conditions for the assertion of their opposites.

Shen Chen’s work is being loaned courtesy of Cynthia Reeves Gallery.