. . . I am witness to my eyes seeing, and it is early morning on a hill in California, last night I slept in a double bed with soft sheets, and this morning I got up, got in my car, and came here.

I am telling you this in an effort to let you know what it is like to be here, what it feels like to be outside this morning on this hill. It looks like another hazy day in California on this Wednesday. Who knows what the day will bring. I’m here to let you know what it is like to be here. You are witness to my eyes seeing, and the air is cool, my skin is cool, I have just woken up.

If you want to know when there’s a storm, look up at the sky, and I’m looking up at the sky right now and telling you there is a storm, it’s a shit storm, and part of my job is to let you know what it feels like to be in the middle of this shit storm, so you can hear it first and know what it is like to be here . . . - from Anna Mayer’s Sitting Pretty, 2007

Signs of Some Precarity is an exhibition of four artists born in the late 1970s whose work employs strategies of temporal disruption and theatrics as a means for producing meaning. Located between twentieth century American Constructivism and the current moment, Alex Kwarter’s paintings position themselves as anachronistic presences of time. Expressiveness becomes historical artifact in Jesse Willenbring’s work, while expressionistic mark making is driven to democratization in the shaped paintings of John Finneran. In Anna Mayer’s drawing and video, iconic signs and frontal modes of address are enacted to dislocate their signifying power in both form and velocity. The exhibition is an attempt to open a door for a socially engaged mind to critically experience works whose politics are subtle but crucial and are driven to create an abstract stage for productive thought.

Curated by Carter Mull