Preface

Adaptation Syndrome, an exhibition of work by twelve painters, curated by Dinah and Paul Ryan, was shown January 21 - March 13, 2005, Richmond, Virginia, at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond (formerly the Hand Workshop Art Center), and Reynolds Gallery.

Blackbird presents a documentation of select images from the exhibition, as well as streaming videos that reveal the process of mark-making (with a gun and a carnival ride) for painters Margaret Evangeline and Rosemary Fiore.

Adaptation Syndrome  January 21 - March 13, 2005  Visual Arts Center of Richmond	(All installation photographs by David Stover)

Curators Dinah and Paul Ryan write:

The title of this exhibition, Adaptation Syndrome, alludes to the name given by the Austrian-Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye to the physiological reaction to stress. Selye proposed that the first response to stress is shock, followed by a stage of adaptation, which must have a healing or progressive effect on the body if exhaustion and death are not to follow.

Without making a direct parallel to Selye’s now-famous theories about stress, Adaptation Syndrome explores the number of ways in which contemporary painters are reacting and adapting to the dominance of image culture in the early 21st century.

To begin, follow the Next link below to the the Curators’ Introduction, "Reappearing Out of Everything."