Wonzimer is pleased to present Visual and Verbal Cognition, an exhibition of select works by Theodore Svenningsen, spanning a number of years.

The exhibition explores the visual and verbal aspects of consciousness, the two modes that provide us with knowledge. The exhibition consists of two bodies of work: the TEXT work and the STRUCTURES work. While the artist maintains a deep interest in the three functions of consciousness (cognition, conation, and affection), cognition is the focus addressed by the works in this exhibition.

The TEXT pieces are involved with Verbal Cognition and address various areas of interest. One area concerns the interrelationships between certain individual persons and the larger group, and the difficulties and inabilities of these individuals to fit in. Additional areas of interest involve the investigation of money in society and its position as an important criterion in the judging of a person, dominating and almost obliterating all truly human propensities; also, the actual, but mostly ignored, temporariness of life is addressed. Art that is self-referential and theory-driven art are also explored. In the text work, words are used in their usual everyday denotative manner, but the text also becomes an aesthetic entity in itself in the work; a conflation of these two aspects is integral to the work. It should be noted here that Propositional Cognition is actually the proper name for what is popularly referred to as Verbal Cognition.

The STRUCTURES work addresses Visual Cognition. Within the Structures work, there are a number of different series, including the Primitive Structures, the Anxious Objects, and the Primordial Series. In the Primitive Structures, mysterious figures of unknown origin and objects that are not quite what they seem to be make appearances. Various issues, including questions of aesthetics and light, are concerns of the Anxious Objects and the Primordial Series.

The art in the exhibition is influenced by two of Svenningsen’s life-long areas of interest. One is an involvement with thinking about thinking. In some cases, this leads to a fascination with the ways some persons think, which is often inconsistent, peculiar, and with a complete absence of logic. A second interest influencing the art is aesthetics within visual perception. The two concerns of thinking and aesthetics led to his interest in philosophy and art. Svenningsen majored in philosophy at U.C.L.A., where he received a BA and a Master’s Degree in philosophy and was advanced to doctoral candidacy. While a graduate student, he was a teaching assistant in philosophy of psychology, with an area of interest being self-deception. An involvement with art never ended and continued, leading to him receiving an MFA degree in painting from Otis College of Art and Design.

Svenningsen’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the New Museum and the Drawing Center, both in New York, and the University Art Museum, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art, Guangzhou, China. He has two pieces in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and is in the collection of Staatliche Museum zu Berlin, Pressischer Kulturbesitz, Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, Germany, and is included in many other collections.