The Invitational is an exhibition without a theme or a single author, and yet, certain tendencies emerge in this year’s installment. In many cases, the finished works destabilize, even disregard, old disciplinary questions rooted in hierarchy is it a painting or a sculpture; art or craft? Instead, they opt for plenitude, for and, and, and. Objects in the exhibition extend the art historical archive to include artifacts of incarceration, migration, and climate emergency. They heighten our attention to color and scale. Artists employ a range of techniques: marbling, weaving, glazing, animation, found-object manipulation, collage, dark-room processing, and more, often in “wrong” or unconventional ways. We witness art’s capacity for surprise, and the enduring pleasure of material experimentation.