In financial terms, systemic risk refers to a domino effect of cascading failures, leading to the total, irreversible collapse of an entire system or market. The artists in this exhibition work to reorganize specific parameters of a given system in order to point to phenomenological behavior, inequality, misperception, and in some cases complete lack of understanding.
Daniel Bejar, Sujin Lee, Laura Napier and Risa Puno point toward conditions in contemporary life wherein a transition to a less optimal equilibrium is inevitable and often irreversible. This transition is key to the context of a selection of works that highlights humorously skewed results, competing agendas, and unfortunate compromises. Employing games, social behavior, language, and cultural recognition, Systemic Risk reveals how our familiar and trusted systems are in a process of breaking down and being discredited.