As we emerge from a period of drastic change and radical uncertainty, we begin to reexamine our intuitions and question our deeply held assumptions: How did I come to think this way? Why wasn’t I aware of that? The answers are almost never entirely satisfying. But while saying “I don’t know” feels like an admission of one’s own ignorance, “I thought I knew” offers an opportunity for self-reflection; a recognition that knowledge and ideas are constantly being produced and reproduced, formed, and transformed. Although a statement in the past tense, the phrase is very much about the present. It points to an acknowledgement of the contingency of our comprehensions and apprehensions, our thoughts, and wisdoms.

I Thought I Knew—Syracuse University MFA Show (installation view). Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. June 2023

photo: Ortega y Gasset Projects

The exhibition follows three main axes that cut across our understandings of the body, the world, and the future, posing questions about the paradoxical familiarity and strangeness of each. The works in the exhibition navigate familiar themes and concerns, but do so charily and subtly, threading the proverbial needle between conceptual exploration, material experimentation, personal histories, more-than-human connections, and the place of situated subjectivity in the world at large. The result is an array of works and projects that invite us to rethink our position in the world and to probe our most immutable enduring thoughts and beliefs.

Mengru Zhou, The Crying (2023)

image: Mengru Zhou

I Thought I Knew was exhibited at Smith Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York between April 20 – May 19, 2023. A smaller version of the show was exhibited at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, New York between June 2 - 11, 2023.

Syracuse University artists:

Zherong Hu, Rumpelstiltskin Morgan, Daisy Wiley, Mengru Zhou, David de Lira, Wanda-Marie Rana, Qianjin Men, Evan Bode, Jason Eppink, Mmakgosi Anita Tau, William Trent Welstead, Qian Zhang, Zhiru Chen, Ai Ni Cheng, Amaan Ayaz Khan, Hao Lu, Kai Alexander Patricio, Rabia Razzaq, Christina Yuanjing Chu, Erica Lingyin Luo, Jiayun Xu, Anika Hope Zetterberg, Xiaodi Zhang, Feimo Zhu.

Ortega y Gasset Projects artists:

Zherong Hu, Daisy Wiley, Mengru Zhou, David de Lira, Wanda-Marie Rana, Qianjin Men, Jason Eppink.

Exhibition curated by Rodrigo Guzman-Serrano.

Exhibition websites, Syracuse University live & archived; Ortega y Gasset live & archived