MX Gallery, an exhibition and performance space, is transitioning into its new project with a new name: Newton.
Newton refers simultaneously to the canonical natural philosopher, Isaac Newton; the historically de-centered social philosopher, Huey Newton; and a defunct Apple product that was later developed into the iPhone. Newton is the rubric under which we recognize the scientific method, revolutionary impulse, critical insight, and dissolution as universal, ’of the times,’ and essential to operation.
COVID laid bare existential issues of contemporary art at every tier. Nobody was safe, neither artists, gallerists, and organizers with extremely developed projects nor the scrappy younger cohort. In a rose-colored retrospect, we are trying to make sense of the confusion. Relationships are skewed, out of step with the rhythm of art history, and history at large. What is the incentive to resume ‘business as usual' when it is not useful? We have abruptly landed in a Gretchen Bender video work — subtitles are out of sync with images of an alienated past.
Why can't an episode of The Sopranos or a game like Minecraft be collected by The Whitney? Why can't MIT press publish a Discord? Narrative media has always been a forbidden boundary separating conceptual art, understood to be the truest form of pure-play, from fandom, fetish, and fiction.
Exalted — Newton looks to encourage and support visual art, online communities, narrative writing, episodic video, theater, gaming, and film. Our new programmatic focus is to support these alternative communities and emerging video and media platforms.
Uncompromising in the belief that cultural workers deserve to profit from their labor, we employ commercial art strategies in the sale of film, painting, digital works, and other narrative works/media. We hope to foster a new productive relationship amongst disillusioned artists, new types of work, thoughtful communities, and nascent markets.
We invite you to reach out if you have any questions, insight, or interest in the new project. Keep informed Via newtonn.io.