The moment you identified yourself in the mirror, you saw yourself as an isolated figure, different from the rest of the world. You set yourself apart as an image, emerging as necessarily separate from the “real” world around you. You registered yourself as a distinct concept. You appeared as a figure and all the rest, ground.
Ideal Territory brings together a group of works that obliquely consider territory itself—as domain, history, narrative, and site of comparison. Sliding between conceptual borders that distinguish these properties, the assembled gestures find themselves decisively within a territory of ideals. As if by accident—though assuredly no accident—the ground returns as a seeping substance into these works. Together they form a constellated image of that which is shared in common as precisely that which forms the foundation of separation.
Made possible by the generous support of Cirrus Gallery, Ideal Territory features new work by recent UC Irvine MFA graduates Jenn Berger, Sean Cassidy, Michael Moshe Dahan, Heather Delaney, Shaun Garren, Rochele Gomez, Elan Greenwald, Daniel Hawkins, and Isabel Theselius.