Machine Learning

Exhibition Dates: November 26, 2007 - December 21, 2007

Reception: Thursday, November 29, from 6-8 pm

The Painting Center is pleased to announce the group exhibition Machine Learning, featuring New York City-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao, and Douglas Melini, with a special project room installation by Michael Zahn. The exhibition is curated by Matthew Deleget, artist and co-founder of MINUS SPACE in Brooklyn, New York.

The title of the exhibition, Machine Learning, is inspired by a part of artificial intelligence concerned with the development of algorithms that allow computers to “learn”. Technologists working in machine learning essentially teach computers to recognize patterns within massive, seemingly unrelated sets of data. Machine learning has a tremendous range of real-world applications, the most ubiquitous of which is the Internet search engine.

The exhibition Machine Learning examines the relationship between abstraction, painting, and the information age, and presents four artists making new forms of pattern-based painting. The exhibition raises multiple questions. First, how has abstraction responded to the irresistible siren call of the Internet? How has abstraction digested the appearance, logic, and behavior of the Internet? And finally, with every conceivable kind of information now available at the click of a mouse, what are contemporary abstract artists’ core concerns?

The exhibition originated at The Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MD (www.smcm.edu) in September 2007 and will later travel to Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX (www.gallerysonjaroesch.com) in March 2008. A color catalog will accompany the exhibition. Machine Learning is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts. The exhibition, tour, and catalog are made possible by grants from the Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Foundation, The Golden Rule Foundation, and Louise & Anne Abrons Foundation.