Pink Floyd Track Inspires Group Show on Absent Selves

A 13-artist group show at an unnamed venue borrows its title from a Pink Floyd track on the 1969 album Ummagumma, exploring the human self and its perception even when absent. The exhibition opens with Aaron Curry's Phantom (2010), a planar sculpture merging human and animalistic forms, alongside works by Gerard Byrne and Nicholas Byrne that render the human figure spectral. Andrea Büttner's woodcuts, Esther Kläs's neo-postminimalist concrete cast, and another Gerard Byrne photograph from his Waiting for Godot series further probe spiritual absence. Pietro Roccasalva's painting and film reference Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, while Kōji Enokura's photographs capture poignant near-nothing events. Manon de Boer's film Dissonant (2010) shows a dancer responding to memory. The show suggests modernist abstract modes remain valid for addressing transcendent issues. First published in the October 2013 issue of ArtReview.