You’re fired. I’m leaving. You just crashed your car into my storm-wrecked home. I’m standing in your flooded basement with an electrical cord in my hand. It’s hard to concentrate. I’m freaking out. I can’t hear you. What?

The concept of destruction is complicated and vast. At the same time, ironically, no one really needs it explained.

The twenty eight artists in You’re Breaking Up choose to tackle the theme of destruction in a multitude of ways through a focus on war, the breaking of trust, the separation of families, damage to the environment, the death of beauty, the breaking of a heart, the end of the world, accidental destruction, erasure of the past, and breaks in time between youth and old age.

Sometimes there are physical acts of destruction that underscore these concepts – abrasion, scratching, tearing, erasure – but not always. As heavy as this topic is, at the same time, there is a lightness in some of the work. These artists recognize destruction as sometimes a necessary part of arriving at a new place, the merging of cultures or a rising from ashes to generate new growth. This doesn’t make destruction okay, but it does make it worth examining.

Onaje Benjamin, Jess Blaustein, Alaiyo Bradshaw, Lucille Colin, Matthew Crain, Maxine Davidowitz, Maureen Gates, Dan Goldman, Ed Grant, James Hannaham, Trang Huynh, Yoko Izu, Roxie Johnson, Chong Kang, Tracy Leavitt, Dorothea Marcus, Jim Nickel, Yukie Ohta, David Ort, Suzanne Parker, Susan Phillips, Eileen Power, Regina Quinn, Betsey Regan, John Scribner, Amy Silberkleit, Linda Stillman, Mimi Young

Since 1996, artist/curator Elizabeth Keithline’s work has focused on human self-extension. In 2005, while researching her solo show The Lost House Project, she observed that many other artists were also creating work about the modern built environment, so she invited curator Sara Agniel to jury Ourchitecture to run alongside it. This happened again when she created Only The Strong Survive, (The Meek Shall Inherit was co-curated with Bernard Leibov of BoXo Projects), and when she built Smarter, Faster, Higher and curated A Tool Is A Mirror to travel alongside it. Her latest effort, a show about destruction called Breaking Broken, will run partially in tandem with Your Breaking Up at 11 Jane Street, Saugerties.

Keithline has shown widely in the United States including solo shows at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Danforth Museum, the Newport Art Museum, the Waiting Room in New Orleans, Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, ArtPrize Grand Rapids, Real Art Ways in Hartford, Umass Amherst, Umass Dartmouth, Jane Street Art Center and Wheaton College. Doing business as Wheel Arts Administration, she has curated exhibitions for Mark Miller Gallery, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Boxo Projects NY, Mobius Boston and Wheaton College. She has written for Sculpture Magazine, Public Art Review, Art New England and the Americans For the Arts blog. Her work has been well reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Fiber Arts Magazine, the Boston Globe and others.