THE END - of an era, of a mindset, of false limitations. Our transformation has now begun, at the dawn of the 21st century.

Do you remember when art was meaningful? When it held the promise of something truly new, of insight and revelation? Before the FOMO-fueled performative shopping events we unironically call fairs? Before art was the handmaiden of cool kids and mean girls? When it was powerful, art was the realm of geeks and freaks, fantasists and fearless visionaries. That past, imperfect as it was, seems impossible now. Now we commemorate it with romantic stories, packaged as musicals and movies featuring artists’ garrets, cafes and bars like the Cabaret Voltaire, with manifestos shouted by handsome rogues standing half-drunk on chairs, or printed in blocky serif typefaces on crinkly newspapers, ready for reincarnation as a jaunty collage. Now we shove through BMW sponsored, champagne soaked VIP rooms at the collector preview party – or log on to virtual viewing rooms that push the latest drop to your Hamptons home without the inconvenient mess of a sticky East Village opening. Awkward conversation and the exchange of uncomfortable ideas have long since been wrung out of art for the convenience of vapid, risk-averse stakeholders, followers of followers. Art is rebranded as fashionable investment vehicle, gussied up with lip service to social justice and identity issues.

Don’t mourn what we burnt down. Piece by piece, we dismantled it with confused conviction, hungrily stripped it of its meat, in faithful anticipation of future reincarnation. The simulacrum that now stands in its place is a placebo erected by the sentimental and the naïve, the poseurs and the ignorant. Don’t cling to it, see it for what it is; a false god freshly placed upon the old alter by barbarians after we abandoned the temple. If you are looking for the familiar past, you will not find it today. Look instead for the future, and you will create it. For here we are now, on the cusp of the other side. Our new world will not replicate the old, it is an opportunity to build better, on stronger ground, so that we may go yet higher before we leap into the void. The juice we wrung from art is the nectar we now drink, transformed into a pure and fermented fuel, ready for launch.

This exhibition is not the end, it is the last step on a bridge to a beginning that we create together, to Expanded Field Art. This threshold that cannot be crossed without purpose or passion. With over forty artists, all new to the gallery, this large exhibition shows how pervasive and vigorous this new direction is. This will be the final exhibition at the gallery’s current location and under the guise of Culture Object.

Culture Object is dead, long live culture object.

— Damon Crain