Preternatural

Celina Jefferey

• ISBN: 978-0-615-76636-2

• Paperback, 8.5×11 in., FC, 38pp.

• Publication date: December 12, 2012

• Price: $20

• BISAC: ART006010

• Thema: AGC, FXE

• Categories: Exhibition Catalog

The preternatural, as explored by these artists, disturb the ontological boundaries of art, nature and metaphysics. They exist within the folds of classificatory thresholds: both beyond and between nature and supernature; human and animal; vegetable and mineral; living and dead. The confusion between animate and inanimate is a primary concern, a surreality which unites with the preternatural’s love for reveling in the mysterious: bizarre fragments, unreadable words, objects of absurd scale, and distortions of the relativity of time and space flourish throughout this exhibition.

Preternatural is the catalogue for a multi-site art exhibition (9 December 2011 through 17 February 2012, in Ottawa, Canada) that draws from the idea that art itself is a form of preternatural pursuit, in which the artists participating explore the bewildering condition of being in between the mundane and the marvelous in nature. It questions a world that understands itself as accessible, reachable, and ‘knowable’ and counters it with a consideration of this heterogenous proposition.

Celina Jeffery is an art historian, curator and educator. She received a Ph.D. in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex (2002), is Associate Professor of Art History and Theory, and the Chair of the Visual Arts program at the University of Ottawa. She is the co-editor (with Gregory Minissale) of Global and Local Art Histories (2007) and the co-founder and editor of Drain Magazine: A Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture (2004-present). She has curated more than fifteen international exhibitions, including: Lines of Flight, at Hunter College, NYC, 2007; Afterglow (featuring Ghada Amer, Alfredo Jaar and Bill Viola, among others) in Lacoste, France, 2007; Wangechi Mutu: The Cinderella Curse at the ACA Gallery, Georgia, USA,; and Hold On, co-curated with Avantika Bawa at Gallery Maskara, Mumbai. Her research interests include globalization, navigation and cartographies, the ‘spiritual’ experience in art, and the history and practice of curating. She is currently compiling the edited anthology The Artist as Curator, to be published by Intellect.