From the curator

I LOVE MY IGNORANCE OF THE FUTURE

THE 2019 COLUMBIA MFA THESIS EXHIBITION

“Will you allow as a certainty that we are at a turning point? — If it is a certainty it is not a turning.1

In Maurice Blanchot’s “The Infinite Conversation” a chapter called On a Change of Epoch: The Exigency of Return asserts that one can never know when one is in the middle of a turning point. In the same chapter, Blanchot reminds us that Nietzche later revised his own statement ‘I love my ignorance of the future’ to ‘I love the uncertainty of the future’, in a way allowing for a more palatable version of the first statement. Either way, the idea is that the only thing we truly know, is that we don’t know. Of the significance of the statement, Blanchot relates, “do not be impatient to the point of anticipating by a too resolute seeking what is in store for you. Do not simplify. But there is this uncertainty; the ignorance borne by the hazardous traits of the future.2 {…}

It is safe to say that uncertainty of the future looms especially large throughout the 2nd year of Columbia’s MFA program (or any graduate program for that matter) be it for the preparation of the thesis exhibition itself, or for the coming aftermath of the MFA program — or a nice cocktail of both! It is a particularly trying time when a certainty of many details must be secured amidst feelings of great uncertainty. Fortunately for art students, ‘the unknown’ should by now be a dear old acquaintance, returning as they do each time to blank pages and canvases, empty screens, and unformed material. The studio becomes a place to gamble with the unknown. It is a brave act that often goes underappreciated.

Learning to love the unknown echoes Rebecca Solnit’s rumination on the ‘unforeseen’ in her book, Getting Lost:

“How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.

1 Maurice Blanchot. “On the Change of Epoch: The Exigency of Return.” The Infinite Conversation. Translation and foreward by Susan Hanson. Theory and History of Literature, Volume 82. University of Minnesota press, Minneapolis and London. Page 264.

2 Ibid, 280.

To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us.”3

A relentless anxiety over the collapse of things supposedly ‘known’ met with the unknown future of global politics, environmental crisis, economic instability, infuses the minutiae of our daily lives. Learning to live with the unknown, or even relish in it, may be but one way out. During the course of my visits where I witnessed great dedication, resiliency, and true catharsis, I conclude that there is a lot to learn from the position of a graduate student. As these artists embark on the beginning of their ‘unprogrammed’ life, I hope that they will make a conscious effort to continually and purposefully ‘get lost’ in the value of notknowing, and that they will feel a sense of pride in meeting the unforeseen head on. In her book, Solnit also reminds us of Edgar Allan Poe’s edict: “in matters of philosophical discovery… it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely”.4 In this estimation, the postthesis gamble for all students becomes, ‘how does one get lost better?’

It has been an honor for me to witness how each of the artists has been practicing this work with their thesis projects, during the many studios visits this position allows for.

This marks the third iteration of thesis shows I have curated for the Columbia MFA department — the first in 2009 and the second in 2016 (Obama’s first year in office and then the year Trump came into office). In retrospect, it no doubt feels like those were the ‘turning point’ years, though one can argue, as Blanchot did, that the turning points are continually happening. Nevertheless, the 2019 graduating class has their own set of turns and potential trajectories that I look forward to looking back upon in ten years time as well. Their thoughtful, hard work on the thesis will carry them through longer than they can know at this time.

Take note: As many of these projects may likely continue to form beyond the date of this thesis exhibition, only to be fleshed out further and more elaborately, in various iterations and in specific locales…. or they may suddenly change course entirely.

Herein lies the thrill of the unforeseen.

Regine Basha March 15, 2019

3 Solnit, Rebecca, Getting Lost, Penguin Books, 2006. Page 128.

4 Ibid, 126.