Beyond the Artist at CR10 Arts by Francine Hunter McGivern

Enrico Pedrini’s book Irreversibility and the Avant-Garde: An Essay on Physics and Modern Culture, published by Edgewise Press in 2004,analyzes the theoretical relationship between discoveries affecting our perception of the natural world, technological innovation, and the ongoing discourse of the avant-garde. He explores particularly the impact of Werner Heisenberg’s Theory of Indeterminacy on culture, and the manner in which unstable systems give rise to progressive developments. This essay laid the groundwork for a show he curated in 1992, entitled Beyond the Artist, which consisted entirely of books dealing with scientific discoveries exhibited like sculpture on pedestals.

Hunter McGivern acquired and then renovated CR10, a fifteen-thousand-foot space in Linlithgo, New York, as a venue for art and culture. CR10 Arts became her five-year conceptual project, during which time Hunter McGivern programmed challenging art and performance works. Beyond the Artist was installed in the second-floor gallery, substituting logs for conventional pedestals used at Studio Leonardi V-Idea, Pedrini’s first venue for the exhibition in Genoa, Italy. A fifth timber was added to the CR10 installation, representing the premature loss of Enrico, a dear friend, collector, art theorist and fellow traveler in art.