The Liberty of Empire Opening Reception and Artist Talk January 7, 2011

1708 Gallery kicks off the new year by transforming into a laboratory space for Matthew Friday’s site-specific, interactive installation The Liberty of Empire, which focuses on bringing the history of Thomas Jefferson into the present. The exhibition opens on Friday, January 7 and will be on display through Saturday, February 12. Join us for the First Friday opening reception on January 7 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., which will include an artist talk at 7 p.m.

Utilizing the cultural, environmental, and economic theories of Thomas Jefferson as a framework, Friday is interested in both stimulating and investigating the past within the context of contemporary social relations. His activation of the forgotten aspects of Jefferson’s legacy, such as the president’s dislike of capitalism, his budding interest in ecology, and his fascination with anarchist utopias, allows the artist to present a critical examination of current American society.

The Liberty of Empire takes the form of a provisional laboratory in a multi-step project that first involves asking local citizens what elements they think are relevant to the practice of history. These responses are then fed into a specifically designed computer program that will create diagrams of this information, which will be layered over a site-specific ink-wash mural of Jefferson’s architectural plans for Monticello. During the course of the exhibition, drawings will slowly accumulate, obscuring the historical image of utopia depicted on the wall. The Liberty of Empire becomes an archive of drawings and diagrams as the past is replaced by new maps of potentiality.