Blind Man Looking For A Black Cat In A Dark Room

For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn t there book.

Blind man looking for a black cat in a dark room.

The show curated by anthony huberman took its title from a line attributed to charles darwin. Ernest gellner referred to an east european joke about science philosophy and marxism as looking for a cat in a dark room with various consequences. You re like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn t there. The cat s responses yearning and mournful seemed to me to echo the depth and doubt of morandi s work.

Also in 1942 a book reviewer in the cornell law quarterly extended the humorous passage by contrasting three professions. For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn t there starts with the premise that art is not a code that needs cracking. With science the cat is present with philosophy absent and with. Philosopher theologian and lawyer.

For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn t there will travel to an additional american venue and a slightly modified version of the exhibition will simultaneously travel to three european venues. A theologian is the man who finds it h l. A mathematician is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn t there. September 11 2009 january 3 2010 ica london.

Read reviews from world s largest community for readers. Contemporary art museum st. With his obscure and uncertain speculations as to the intimate nature and causes of things the philosopher is likened to a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there. Dashiell hammett in the dain curse 1929 referred to a blind man in a dark room hunting for a black hat that wasn t there.

Celebrating the experience of not knowing and unlearning the artists in this exhibition understand the world in speculative terms eager to keep art separate from explanation. A blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn t there and finding it.