In the Belly of the Whale

This group exhibition brings together artworks and objects to trace various transformations of meaning, reception, and use over time. The titular metaphor of the whale’s belly—a mythic space separated from lived reality—plays on the residual legacy of the white cube as an allegedly bracketed space of reflection, contemplation and perceptual or political transformation. Just as Jonah, who in the biblical account was swallowed by a whale, and perhaps the visitor, are transformed through isolated meditation, In the Belly of the Whale plays content against its framing to question both how an artifact references a given historical moment and how different modes and moments of display effect signification. Or, to present these questions in another way: do images and artifacts indicate fixed meanings independent of their context, or are they inherently unstable, and tempered by situational and institutional inscription?