ASEMIC NOTATIONS
February 4 - March 4, 2023
Image courtesy of artist: Julia Rende
IDOLWILD is pleased to present “Asemic Notations”, a group exhibition curated by Heather Lowe, featuring artists Connie Rohman, Julia Rende, Lea Feinstein, Liz Nurenberg, Lynn Robb, Molly Montgomery, Piss & Vinegar, Robert Soffian, Tim Youd, Zoia Skoropadenko and video work by Rosaire Appel. Asemic Notations will be on view February 4 through March 4, 2023, with the opening reception taking place on Sunday, February 5, 2023 from 12pm - 5pm.
When does a mark on a surface become language? Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing having no specific semantic content. Atsuko Tanaka, Cy Twombly, Mirtha Dermisache, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst, and Henri Michaux are some notable artists applying asemic writing to their surfaces. With the non-specificity of Asemic Art comes a potential for unfettered meaning left for the observer to fill in and interpret. The word asemic derives from Barthes and later Derrida, according to Peter Schwenger: “Derrida, refers to the blanks between words as asemic spacing, which makes signification possible without in itself signifying.” Schwenger explains, “The linguistic term seme (derived from the Greek term sema, or sign) is negated or neutralized by the privative prefix a.” *
Through subconscious scrawls of non-language, these artists invite you to experience a deeply personal narrative that may surpass what we already take for granted as meaning. Shwenger proposes, “An awareness of what lies beyond our familiar structures of meaning may keep us from having our life scripts written according to an already existent system of signs.”*
*Asemic: The Art of Writing by Peter Schwenger
“The Asemic Effect”, David Ebony, Art in America, May 2020
Opening Reception: Sunday, February 5, 2023 / 12PM-5PM
