The Subtle Rules the Dense is a series of masks/torsos/body plates that Phoebe Collings-James cast from mannequins and then worked by hand. The resulting objects lie ambiguously between a representation of a human torso and a shamanistic mask. The work is reminiscent of Yoruba and Makonde body masks that portray pregnant forms, as well as Roman armor with nipple rings.
Kovanda’s street interventions are always documented according to the same format as the actions: a piece of A4 paper, a typewritten text giving a precise location and date, and a photograph. Contrarily to the actions, he took the photographs himself. One of the rules he stuck to in his artistic practice was to always use material at his disposal, a real economy of means.
home, a temporary place by Mithu Sen is part of a project called AºVOID. In this fragmented mental map, the landscape is fleeting, embossed, and ethereal; there are moments of recognition and also a near-violent sudden emptying of memory. Bodies are skeletal, nature is in entropy, context is removed.
Silver & Gold combines video, performance, and original costumes into a self-proclaimed “filmformance” that evokes the legendary filmmaker Jack Smith and his tribute to 1940s Dominican movie starlet Maria Montez in a magical and joyfully twisted exploration of race, glamour, sexuality, and the silver screen. Taking Smith’s interest in Hollywood’s obsession with the reproduction of the exotic as a point of departure, Bustamante embodies Miss Montez. Here, video and the body function as both material and subject in her bizarre search for the new bejeweled body part that is at once her curse and oracle.
Martin Kippenberger’s late collages are known for incorporating a wide range of materials, from polaroids and magazine clips to hotel stationery, decals, and graphite drawings. Untitled is a collage on paper work by Kippenberger that typifies his everything-goes approach: a barely discernible, sliced image of Michael Jackson’s face is overlaid and woven with strips and triangular shapes from a different source into a single composition. Blue tones come from torn out pages of a book where fragments of illustrations can be seen.
Palimpsest is a series of what artist Phi Phi Oanh calls “pictorial installations”. Lacquerscope is the name she has given to the lacquer projection machines that she created from lenses and old parts of small format film projectors. The name harkens back to the early age of mechanical reproduction that also coincides with the “invention” of Vietnamese lacquer painting in the last century.
The Korean title for U: Repair the cowshed after losing the cow = Too late is —a famous Korean proverb meaning “you are doing something when you are already late to do it”. This work by Seulgi Lee is a nubi (traditional Korean quilt) blanket project that shows Korean proverbs expressed as geometric shapes. Nubi blankets were used as single sheet summer blankets in Korean households until the 1980s.
Vivian Suter paints her canvases and then allows them to come in contact with natural elements. For thirty years she has lived in isolation in the Guatemalan jungle, accumulating canvases, sometimes leaving them out for long periods of time. As a result, Suter does not title or date her paintings.
Out of simple materials, Alicia Henry creates enigmatic, somewhat troubled characters, which reveal her interest in the complexities and the contradictions surrounding familial relationships. The artist probes societal differences and how these variations affect individual and group responses to themes of beauty, the body, and broader issues of identity. Untitled explores these themes and addresses the processes through which women navigate such issues.
“ I think we are oversaturated, filled to the brim with images in our inner subconscious eye. Towards the end of 2020, I was feeling very much that I couldn’t take in any more information visually. That was when I made Instruments of Air.
Fauna is a figurative sculpture by Auriea Harvey that is characteristic of the artist’s practice—both serious and somewhat whimsical. Making use of old and new technologies, the work is a self-portrait. The sculpture features a soft and gentle human face made of 3D printed composite, sprouting from a clutter of clay and other materials.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
This untitled print by Wade Guyton depicts an iteration of elements that are characteristic of the artist’s work. Inkjet printed on canvas is a duplicate flame motif overlaid with a stripe pattern. This work originated in Guyton’s interest in collecting various editions of the novel Firestarter by the popular horror and science fiction author Stephen King.
One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean by Yuyan Wang reflects on the experience of not being able to see the world with depth perception. Made up of micro-events from ‘satisfying videos’ that swarm on the internet, the abstract narrative unfolds through layers of appropriation; referencing trance and minimal music in the process. The work addresses a desire for groundless waves, blended with today’s inexorable entropy of information societies.
First Born by Rachel Rose is part of a series of works titled Borns which expands on the artist’s longstanding interest in the organic shape of eggs. For this sculpture made of rock and glass the artist has created a milky glass-blown shape, almost like fabric in its form, which is draped over a metallic rock in the shape of an egg. For the artist, the egg is an alchemical symbol that is representative of conception and birth.
wombmate! by Mithu Sen is part of a project called AºVOID. In this fragmented mental map, the landscape is fleeting, embossed, and ethereal; there are moments of recognition and also a near-violent sudden emptying of memory.
Kovanda’s street interventions are always documented according to the same format as the actions: a piece of A4 paper, a typewritten text giving a precise location and date, and a photograph. Contrarily to the actions, he took the photographs himself. One of the rules he stuck to in his artistic practice was to always use material at his disposal, a real economy of means.
Blue Elbow (Coude bleu) is made from plaster, burlap, lacquer, pigments and plastics. The materials related to the techniques of the sculpture or the painting but also others, which refer to commerce, to objects of consumption. The chair refers directly to the body as does the title of the work, Blue Elbow .
Wolfgang Tillmans initiated the ongoing series Faltenwurf in 1989, representing compositions of unused clothing, with special attention paid to the ways in which they drape and fold. The title is taken from a Germanic term used in the context of art history, designating classical drapery. In this particular photograph, Faltenwurf (Stairwell) , an assortment of various colored clothes lay tangled on a set of stairs, as a sculpture of abstract forms.
Mario Garcia Torres discovered the work of artist Oscar Neuestern in an article published in ARTnews in 1969. This article, which is the only trace of his work, is indicative of a lack of interest by Neuestern to leave his name in history; to “defend an artistic activity that has little or no interest to last.” Oscar Neuestern could only remember the previous 24 hours, of which his life and his work are in constant erasure and reconstruction. His practice was “to let things be done with time and the unconscious,” while “not fearing the void.” He looked for the absolute through transparency and symmetry.
Mithu Sen’s writing is central to her practice, as a poet from West Bengal, a region of great Indian literary history, poetic and visual tropes giving ground to her challenge of semiotics...
Phi Phi Oanh’s unique practice and methodology is anchored in the study of lacquer and pushes the boundaries of the material as a sculptural and conceptual form...
Phoebe Collings-James’ work engages with experiences of hybridity, referring to the work of writer Sylvia Wynter as a route through which to decipher relations to Western ceramics as well as her own familial origins...
Yuyan Wang is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist whose work examines images at the point of production and the atmosphere cultivated by media regimes within the attention economy...
California-born and internationally recognized, Nao Bustamante cut her teeth as an artist between 1984 and 2001 in San Francisco where she studied in the New Genres department at the San Francisco Art Institute...
Alicia Henry creates work that departs from Western ideas of portraiture, which denote a likeness or a construction of a subject...
Seulgi Lee’s artistic references range from anthropological materials, archetypical linguistic elements, vernacular culture, handcrafts tradition, to the graphic culture of animistic belief found in diverse locals around the world...
With a background in photojournalism, artist Rahima Gambo entered into visual art by way of long-form documentary projects...
Jumana Manna is a Berlin-based artist whose work revolves around the body, national identity, and historical narratives...
Rachel Rose is a visual artist known for her video installations that merge moving images and sound within nuanced environments connecting them to broader subjects...
Committed to technique and the mastery of tools, for decades Auriea Harvey’s practice has included drawing, sculpting, and software coding...
Vivian Suter was born in Buenos Aires but brought up in Switzerland where she trained to be an artist...
Kovanda’s street interventions are always documented according to the same format as the actions: a piece of A4 paper, a typewritten text giving a precise location and date, and a photograph...
Kovanda’s street interventions are always documented according to the same format as the actions: a piece of A4 paper, a typewritten text giving a precise location and date, and a photograph...
Martin Kippenberger’s late collages are known for incorporating a wide range of materials, from polaroids and magazine clips to hotel stationery, decals, and graphite drawings...
Silver & Gold combines video, performance, and original costumes into a self-proclaimed “filmformance” that evokes the legendary filmmaker Jack Smith and his tribute to 1940s Dominican movie starlet Maria Montez in a magical and joyfully twisted exploration of race, glamour, sexuality, and the silver screen...
Palimpsest is a series of what artist Phi Phi Oanh calls “pictorial installations”...
Blue Elbow (Coude bleu) is made from plaster, burlap, lacquer, pigments and plastics...
Drawing & Print
This untitled print by Wade Guyton depicts an iteration of elements that are characteristic of the artist’s work...
Wolfgang Tillmans initiated the ongoing series Faltenwurf in 1989, representing compositions of unused clothing, with special attention paid to the ways in which they drape and fold...
The Korean title for U: Repair the cowshed after losing the cow = Too late is —a famous Korean proverb meaning “you are doing something when you are already late to do it”...
Fauna is a figurative sculpture by Auriea Harvey that is characteristic of the artist’s practice—both serious and somewhat whimsical...
Out of simple materials, Alicia Henry creates enigmatic, somewhat troubled characters, which reveal her interest in the complexities and the contradictions surrounding familial relationships...
First Born by Rachel Rose is part of a series of works titled Borns which expands on the artist’s longstanding interest in the organic shape of eggs...
“ I think we are oversaturated, filled to the brim with images in our inner subconscious eye...
The Subtle Rules the Dense is a series of masks/torsos/body plates that Phoebe Collings-James cast from mannequins and then worked by hand...
One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean by Yuyan Wang reflects on the experience of not being able to see the world with depth perception...