Unsparing Quality  (curated by Farrah Karapetian), is a group exhibition that asks three generations of artists: where do Surrealist impulses manifest in contemporary practice? The response includes sculpture by Carmen Argote, Martin Soto Climent, Tim Hawkinson, Julian Hoeber, Shana Lutker, Man Ray, My Barbarian, Robert Therrien and Jane Wilbraham; ceramics by Magdalene Odundo; photographs and video by Eleanor Antin, Claude Cahun, Deville Cohen, Tim Davis, Zackary Drucker, Luke Gilford, Masood Kamandy, Matt Lipps, Mie Hørlyck Mogenson, Martha Rosler, Kim Schoen and Kansuke Yamamoto; and drawings by Ray Anthony Barrett, Hans Bellmer, Chloe Piene, Max Rain, Jacques Villeglé, and Unica Zürn.

Susan Laxton is Assistant Professor of the History of Art at the University of California, Riverside, specializing in the European avant-garde and the history of photography. Her interests range across the alternative art practices introduced by the European avant-gardes of the 20th century, among them photography, collage, photomontage, and automatic or chance-based processes – all practices that emphatically challenged the conventions of traditional mediums like sculpture and painting. Photography, as a medium simultaneously engaged with technology, mass media, documentation and art, has been central to her understanding of modern and contemporary art as both a model for and challenge to the visual arts from the medium’s inception to its digital present. Professor Laxton has received fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University, and the Hellman Foundation. Her work has appeared in such publications as October and Critical Inquiry, and in numerous catalogs and edited volumes. She is currently completing a book on ludic strategies in Surrealism.