January 11 - March 1, 2025
From Conduit Gallery:
“Conduit Gallery is honored to announce Appetites in the Face of Certain Death, a solo exhibition and installation of new works by New York based artist, Matthew Whitenack. “A friend of mine recently told me about missing something and feeling the ‘comet tail of longing’ and the ‘patina of worldly promises / the nudge to hoard something that they love’. Also recently I’ve been reading Spinoza on the train in little bits between the distractions of deranged fits, proselytizing persons, and panhandlers. I shakily underlined this part, “When this striving is related only to the mind, it is called will; but when it is related to the mind and body together it is called appetite. This appetite, therefore, is nothing but the very essence of man from whose nature there necessarily follow those things that promote his preservation and so man is determined to do those things… From all this, then, it is clear that we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it.” So I’ve been thinking about comet tails and patinas and appetites and desires. And these things lead me to other related things like residue and time and death and urgency and taste and choice and maybe fermentation as well. If I can’t catch the comet, or can only seize its brilliance for an instant or two, then I have an appetite for sweeping up the dust of its tail and piling it up on a little shelf… I have an appetite for collecting patinas and residues. Gathering a constellation of things that orbit the very essence of man.. things that point to the core.” – Matthew Whitenack, 12/17/2024”
Reception: January 11, 2025 | 5:30–7:30 pm
1626 C Hi Line
Dallas, 75207 TX
(214) 939-0064
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