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Warren Neidich: The Brain Without Organs: An Aporia of Care On view April 16 - September 25, 2022 The multimedia exhibition considers the brain as a biologically and socially constructed organ and art's liberatory potential to... more
Warren Neidich: The Brain Without Organs: An Aporia of Care
On view April 16 - September 25, 2022
The multimedia exhibition considers the brain as a biologically and socially constructed organ and art's liberatory potential to reimagine it.
Warren Neidich, Brain Without Organs, 2022
Glendale, CA The Museum of Neon Art presents the world premiere of Warren Neidich: The Brain Without Organs: The Aporia of Care, an exhibition of two large neon installations and a series of blacklight activated paintings by artist Warren Neidich. The exhibition uses light and immersive installations to consider philosophical and conceptual questions around information, capitalism, and the evolution of the brain.
Warren Neidich’s works exist at the border zones of art, science and social justice. Over the past two decades, Neidich has applied neurological and aesthetic approaches to understanding humans' evolving relationship with information technology. He has engaged these issues from the role of curator, writer, and artist. In 1996 he co-founded Artbrain.org and Journal of Neuroaesthetics. Now 26 years and many exhibitions, symposia, and anthologies later, Neidich’s works continue to question the evolving networks of control, surveillance, and information under capitalism and globalism and how they are redefining and reshaping systems of the brain. MONA Executive Director Corrie Siegel states, “Neon is a technology invented at the turn of the 20th century as a tool of commerce and advertising. The bright shine of electrified noble gas still connects on a deep level with viewers both as material of commerce as well as an aesthetic tool, capturing attention, as well as eliciting wonder. Neidich uses neon light as a throughline in this exhibition to apply Marxist concepts about labor, production, and attention, as well as conjure the possibility of art as a source of awareness and emancipation from the attention economy.”
The title of the exhibition “Brain Without Organs” is inspired by a concept of “Body Without Organs”. This originated in the writings of Antonin Artaud and was expanded by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. These thinkers advocated for an understanding of the body as something that is more than the sum of its parts, it is an unbounded entity full of potential which is able to affect and be affected by its surroundings. "The Brain Without Organs” explores how the brain is both located in the skull as well as an expansive socio-political entity, developing along with machine learning, big data, and social media.
The hanging sculpture Brain Without Organs is composed of constellations of levitating branches glowing in white neon tubing. These marks represent sulci, the grooves and gyri, the folds on the outer layer of the brain. The sulci and gyri enable the brain to contain more surface area and they also serve as mapping devices for scientists who delineate areas of the brain. Neidich uses a Situationist method of Detournement to create an alternative arrangement free from the constraints of an overall plan. In this case, as presented at MONA, Neidich is calling for the brain to become a Chthulucene or Ecoscene Brain rather then one which is modeled on the values of the Anthropocene.
The Strange Afterlife of Einstein’s Brain, is a wall mounted sculpture of branching white and red neon shapes that represent the folds in a section of Einstein's cerebral cortex. The neon elements are simultaneously gestural, indexical, and abstract. Some studies of Einstein's brain have found several anomalies that distinguish it from typical human brains. In the work these unique folds are delineated by red neon tubing. By highlighting the neurodivergence of one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century the work brings forth the suggestion that neurodiversity is a generator of possibility, rather than limitations.
A small room filled with black light contains paintings that illustrate the brain both anatomically and abstractly. The folds of the brain branch into emojis, text, and symbolism, bringing to mind the social and political nature of cognitive capitalism in which material labor has been replaced by immaterial labor. The fluorescent marks are reminiscent of diagrams, psychedelic paintings, and text threads, mimicking the expansive use of symbolism in attention economies, but also estranging them from their original context.
In destabilizing symbols for the brain, information, and communication Neidich creates space to consider the way our brains are being rewired by our social conditions. As social and political systems are rapidly changing due to neural networks like the internet, Neidich believes it is possible to expand the expectations and constraints society has applied to the mind through artistic navigation.Neidich’s subtitle for the exhibition “ An Aporia of Care” refers to the philosophical concept for a state of puzzlement or doubt. For Neidich aporia serves as a metaphor with which to understand the notion of care during a time when the world is increasingly interconnected. “Art as a form of mental hacking can provide an escape from this imminent disaster – if only we have the consciousness and courage to do so!” states Warren Neidich.
Warren Neidich lives and works in New York and Berlin. His performative and sculptural work Pizzagate Neon (2018), was displayed at the Venice Biennial 2019. In 2015 he founded the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art, a nomadic, intensive summer academy with shifting programs in contemporary critical theory that stresses an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between art and politics. Selected international exhibitions include the Whitney Museum of American Art, PS1 MOMA, White Columns, Artists Space, NYC, Walker Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACE, Los Angeles, National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C., Museum Ludwig, Koln, Haus Der Kunst, Munich, Zentrum Fur Kunst and Media, Karlsruhe and Kunstmuseum Zurich. His work has been the subject of over one-hundred and fifty books and magazine and newspaper articles including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Artforum, Art in America, Kunstforum International, The Art Newspaper, Smithsonian Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Hyperallergic, Artnet, GQ, Forbes, Vogue IT, Monopol, Performance Art Journal, American Photographer, Time Out, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice and Freize. His published books include Neuromacht, Merve, Leipzig published in German and The Glossary of Cognitive Activism, now in its third printing, Archive Books. Recent awards include Siftung Kunstfond Neustart Kulture, 2021, Hauptstadtkulturfonds for Activist Neuroaesthetics, 2020, Siftung Kunstfond Neustart Kulture, 2020, Berliner Senat, Katalogförderung, 2017.