In this exhibition by three dynamic artists, the curator V Maldonado is interested in exploring the politics of aesthetics, or to put it differently, the question of politics as a subset of aesthetics. Although the term aesthetics has a long philosophical and cultural pedigree that is closely associated with the Enlightenment, more recently a critical reappraisal of the question of aesthetics has come to the fore in art discourses. Crucially, aesthetics as the philosophical umbrella under which the distinctions between “of nature” and “of human creation” has become blurred and problematic. The assertion that aesthetics is the study of beauty as a universal and an object of disinterested recognition is appraised as too one-sided and uncritical. Does the structure of aesthetics as the domain for investigating beauty tacitly contain assumptions that need to be questioned, especially in light of how art has been understood, experienced and made? Is it not the case that the political, which has not been historically associated with aesthetics, actually a subset of aesthetics along with art? Today, the active interplay between art and politics would give evidence that this is the case. In fact, contemporary reappraisals of art history also demonstrate that politics as much as art is an aesthetic endeavor. What are the implications for the political if conceived as a form and content of aesthetics? What does that imply for art and how it can be regarded?

Does not the current malaise in contemporary art, with the tendency to make what is predictable, reassuring, safe and consumable - along with the tendency in politics that follow the same pattern to ensure nothing really changes on the structural level - indicate that these questions need to be asked?

This group exhibition does not attempt to exhaustively answer these questions, but curator V Maldonado has engaged in ongoing conversations with each of the exhibiting artists in order to tease out some approaches to this immense investigation and to at least ask the questions. Each of the three painters in this group show present new and past work that seek to respond to these questions through the lens of their lived experiences, imaginations, diverse skill sets, and unique perspectives on contemporary art and society. Aesthetics, politics, art: Not just an area of academic research, but something to be practiced and questioned.