POLIS: LIFE AND DEATH AND LIFE OF A CITY

AUGUST 19 - SEPTEMBER 3, 2016  FRI/SAT 3-8 PM                                                                                          CLOSING RECEPTION SEPTEMBER 8, 4-9 PM

Works by NARCISO ESPIRITU and MEREDITH MIOTKE: Drawings and prints exploring the urban life cycle of people and places through personal nostalgia and public memory. 

Polis refers to the ideal city described in Plato's Republic: Systems of justice and morality, an enlightened populace ruled by philosopher kings. In post-industrial America, the urban landscape has been irreversibly changed. Industrial labor has been replaced by the service industry. Gentrification redefines the historical identities of neighborhoods. Governments reinvent their cities with policy based in some conception of the ideal.

In this exhibition, Meredith Miotke and Narciso Espiritu draw on their individual experiences of cities in massive flux (Detroit and Jersey City, respectively). Through their works, they engage their memories of familiar forms, and the collective recollection of cities that were, while examining the potential for what could be.