Both satirical and yet deeply moving, the title phrase is imagined as the character’s epitaph and summarizes the contradictions of his individual experience as well as the fragile concurrence of our collective existence: it is both impossibly false and yet deeply true. everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. thus references a common thread running throughout this exhibition— the frailty, trauma, loss, and cruelty of the human condition that nonetheless is girded by an irrepressible desire for beauty, love, and connection. Via a myriad of formats and approaches, the artists in the exhibition suggest that we, as human beings, are ultimately responsible to acknowledge the heart-wrenching truth of life and still strive to create meaning within it.