Did Gravity Save the Universe from God?

Fort Point Arts Community Gallery (FPAC) presents: Did Gravity Save the Universe from God? Most cultures throughout history have woven creation stories to lend meaning to their presence within their known worlds. For millennia, the acceptance of the supernatural was relied upon to explain the inexplicable, such as what makes the sun rise, what does it mean to be born, what happens when we die, or where does love come from.

In just the last 500 years, the invention of mechanical devices that help us to see the very tiny to the vastly distant have allowed us to begin to understand science, mechanics, and causality. What used to be assumed to be shrouded and “mystical,” could now be reasoned and proven as simply “physical.”

While divergent in concept and media, the three artists, Joseph Moore, Mark Stock, and Lara Loutrel seem to share sides of the same coin—the obverse, the reverse, and the edge.

A rumination from the exhibit curator Jeffrey Heyne: “The super heavy Higgs Boson ‘God’ particle should have collapsed and destroyed the universe immediately after the Big Bang.  But simple gravity may have helped maintain an equilibrium and balance—allowing our existence. I wonder, if in my efforts of bringing these three artists together in a world that is seemingly rewarding ignorance and rejecting reason, am I hoping to find a solace of balance within myself?”
With the blending of traditional intaglio with digital print, Moore explores an interplay of platonic and biomorphic shapes that hover over a background field matrix. They resemble biological glass slide specimens being viewed through a microscope. Could they be the tiny worlds of single-cell life forms found within a drop of water, or the interlocking puzzle-like components of proteins and antibodies? While this work was selected before the covid virus pandemic swept the globe, the inclusion is now prescient.

Stock’s work seems to remove the “skin,” letting everything rip wide open exposing internal actions that were once concealed, and now openly revealed. By writing computer code he generates digital imagery, video, and sculpture exploring emergent patterns derived from computational analysis. His imagery ranges in feeling from downright cuddly, to mesmerizing, and all the way to machine-like menacing. But there seems to be a truth that is unveiled—from the quantum interaction scale, to planet-making scale, and to somewhere beyond the measurable.

Comment by juror Jessica Hong: “Many disciplines have made these attempts to explain the world—i.e., biological sciences, philosophy, religion, the arts—and this exhibition seeks to bridge these seemingly disparate ideologies, not necessarily to find answers but to create a space for questioning and contemplation.”
Kazimer Malevich appears to be channeling through Loutrel’s prints and sculptural assemblies.  She embarks on a language of sharp, angular, and precise form making that could be interpreted as an architectural construct of math, space, and time. But of what time? Could her work be an unearthed cache of instructions for an ancient particle accelerator? Or could they be plans for a temple/laboratory for the exploration of metaphysics for a culture in a far distant future.

The show has been curated by Jeffrey Heyne.