This Basic Asymmetry

Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB) is pleased to announce This Basic Asymmetry, a group exhibition featuring work by artists Patricia Ayres, Simone Forti, Miguel Angel Payano Jr., Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Gabriela Ruiz.

Through internal sensation, emotion, and cognition we develop a fluid but a strong sense of self that allows us to perceive the complexities and nuances of our personal experience. By contrast, it is only through external sensation, especially vision and observation, that we find the ability to develop an understanding of others, splitting our experience of self from others into an asymmetrical paradigm. This Basic Asymmetry presents the work of five artists whose practices make available their personal processes of introspection, creating a space for the viewer to reflect on their own relationship to their bodies and how that informs one’s perception of others. Addressing the dissonance in our reckoning between self and others, the works exhibited here accommodate space for mutual exploration. Through vulnerability, observation, recognition, and recollection the artwork in This Basic Asymmetry explores new opportunities for perceptions that are inclusive of both self and other.