Breathless press releases announced Polivka’s month-long event. “The Inexpressible, an exhibition that seeks insight into the nature of a mysterious, shared universe described by mystics, philosophers and physicists, is a creative alliance between artists from different countries, a model of contemporary practice, a hybrid with

exalted aims.” The opening night included a series of dance performances in which enormous, red shapes were interpreted via movement and gesture. Polivka’s large, red cut outs were further incarnations of the icons he has deployed in previous works to depict the inexpressible. He has used similar forms in sculptures, paintings, graphic designs, and photographs, stating that such shapes do not so much evolve, but only undergo transmutations.

Having escaped the evolutionary process, they appear and disappear, eternally in between things. Perhaps they are like Husserl’s “hyletic data,” the raw, unformed perceptions preceding cognition. For Polivka the red shapes represent “the system of communication — the final destination of representation itself.” In the entrance atrium

of the gallery, Pol.vka positioned a strangely attractive parfait composed of drawings on paper placed in a large vase of water, left to soak and decompose during the run of the exhibition. Resting on red velvet pillows, an

enormous sewer pipe diagonally bisected the gallery. Painted metallic, cherry red, and with the names of famous philosophers carved into its flanks, this was Heidegger’s Javelin, which according to Heidegger actually should have a mirrored tip reflecting the world. We are “thrown into the world” according to Heidegger — and look to philosophy to help us find “authenticity.”

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In the entrance atrium of the gallery, Polivka positioned a strangely attractive parfait composed of drawings on

paper placed in a large vase of water, left to soak and decompose during the run of the exhibition.