Igshaan Adams’ (b. 1982, Cape Town, South Africa) multi-disciplinary practice is an ongoing examination of hybrid identity, exploring notions of race, religion, and generational trauma.
Adams combines weaving, performance, and installation in an intersection of personal history and his native Cape Town roots. Raised in Bonteheuwel, a former Cape Coloured township in Cape Town created during apartheid, the race-based legislation of the 1950s, Adams reshapes materials representative of his lineage - sourcing rope, cotton, beads, prayer rugs, garden fencing wire, and remnants of linoleum flooring found in the homes of working class, mixed-race and black communities.
“Spoorsny (Tracking Footprints)” (2020), is part of a recent group of tapestries, heavily embellished two-dimensional wall wearings that map and display the repetitive underfoot movements of daily life. Adams reshapes materials representative of his lineage. Using remnants of patterned linoleum flooring excavated from the homes of working class, mixed-race, and black communities living in former Cape Town townships, Adams creates a template to weave a tapestry of colorful beading, rope, twine, wire, and fabric that maps and articulates the evidence of human activity, household furnishings, along with decay, wear, and time.
Within “Spoorsny", an eight-pointed star pattern, known the “Breath of Compassionate," extends sequentially across the plane. Its form is created by two overlaying squares - a symbol of the balance between the four elements Fire, Air, Water, and Earth that, upon repetition, is the genesis of a vast family of patterns in Islamic geometry and design. Born Muslim and raised by his Christian grandparents, Adams brings to life a sacred design in the form of a worn out prayer rug, where traces of bodily weights are made visible as imprints, and appear sculptural in their manifestation.
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Igshaan Adams
Spoorsny (tracking footprints), 2020
Cotton twine, beads, rope, fabric
100 x 78”/ 254 x 198cm
IA2020-010
Kevin Beasley (b. 1985, Lynchburg, VA) presents “Meeting” (2020), a sculptural collection of ghost-like forms that extend from the wall, assembled with vividly colored garments, from housedresses and kaftans to t-shirts and du-rags, supported by a frame constructed from raw cotton sourced from land surrounding his family’s ancestral home in rural, southern Virginia.
Encased in Polyurethane resin, these materials - absent of the bodies that they were intended to clothe - are recycled and reshaped into figural formations that the artist refers to as ‘ghosts.’ Beasley series of “ghosts” began in 2015, and were initially freestanding, positioned directly on the floor. Later he transferred these ghostly forms to the wall, overlapping one another and extending upwards. These invisible apparitions are made visible through a process in which articles of clothing are cut, sewn together, coated in a malleable resin, and draped over individual foam spheres. Working in real-time, dependent upon the temporal confines of his materials, Beasley removes the molds just as the resin begins to cure, while the garments remain solidified in space - hardened around the hollow shape of a human figure. Their combined presence is an overpowering one – one that looms large and overhead, interrupting viewers’ space, and complicating their surroundings.
In “Meeting,” Beasley’s “ghosts" are framed for the first time by a raw cotton border, a material used by the artist for his exploration of our shared histories through a physical, process-based methodology in which objects and materials are altered, molded, cast, distorted, and rebuilt - ultimately given new life. Billowing housedresses and intertwined du-rags are draped from the cotton framework into a cluster of forms that appear as if floating, and frozen in motion.
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Kevin Beasley
Meeting, 2020
Polyurethane resin, raw Virginia cotton, housedresses, kaftans, t-shirts, du-rags
98 x 90 x 21"/ 248.92 x 228.6 x 53.34cm
KB2020-058
Matthew Brannon (b. 1971, St. Maries, ID) returns to the years of the Vietnam/American War as a point of reflection in “Huey” (2020), rendered in his signature graphic style.
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Matthew Brannon
Huey, 2020
Silkscreen and hand painted elements on paper
Paper size: 67 x 103"/ 170.18 x 261.62cm
Framed Dims: 73.75 x 108.5"/ 187.32 x 275.59cm
MB2020-005
With traditional silkscreen printing techniques as well as hand-painting, the artist layers hundreds of screens in an intricate network of overlapping and boldly colored objects presented across two oversized sheets of paper. Image and language intersect in evocations of dual meanings and underlying narrative. Immersed in rigorous historical research, Brannon explores the psychological and cultural implications of the time period through the reproduction of a of Bell UH-1 Iroquois utility military helicopter’s cockpit. Colloquially known as “Huey” (the Iroquois was originally designated HU-1, hence the Huey nickname) over 7,000 helicopters were deployed in combat operations in Vietnam by the United States Military from 1962 to 1975.
Realized through the perspective of the pilot, Brannon’s artwork suggests an intimate glimpse into the material, day-to-day reality of individuals implicated in the decades long conflict. A sticker with the words "CHIEU HOI" in bold, references the Chiêu H?i Program, an initiative by the South Vietnamese to encourage defection by the Viet Cong and their supporters to the side of the Government during the Vietnam War. Over 100,000 Viet Cong defected under the program. A Black Panther newspaper sits to the right of the composition, cropped by the paper’s edge. In the center of the controls rests a “fly the friendly skies" decal, the United Airlines tagline at the time, which the military parodied. A pink sky permeates the composition, interrupted by a yellow “Allies of the Republic of Vietnam” flag positioned next to an American flag.
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Jordan Casteel (b. 1989, Denver, CO) roots her practice in community engagement, painting from her own photographs of people she encounters. Capturing her subjects in their natural environments, her nearly life-size portraits and cropped compositions chronicle personal observations of the human experience.
Casteel presents “Bounty” (2020), a new painting from an ongoing series she refers to as “subway” or “crop” paintings. Sourced from candid photographs taken on the NYC subway, the artist captures a moment in time beyond context or backstory. The viewer connects with the subject through intimate, relatable details. A woman rests her eyes during her commute with one hand cupping her purse and the other stabilizing her shopping bags containing rolls of Bounty paper towels and Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper. Rendered in the artist’s recognizable brushwork, the elaborate floral patterning of the subject’s blouse and the polka dot background of the subway interior celebrate the aesthetics of a quotidian encounter. “Bounty” portrays a rare moment of commuter peacefulness. Sourced from Casteel’s personal library of photographs taken prior to the global pandemic (evidenced by the absence of a face mask), we catch a glimpse of daily life and movement as it once was. Once again, Casteel leaves us with an honest evocation.
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Jordan Casteel
Bounty, 2020
Oil on canvas
72 x 56"/ 182.88 x 142.24cm
JC2020-008
N. Dash’s (b. 1980, Miami, FL) work spans painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography, employing both natural and manmade materials such as pigment, Adobe/mud, jute, graphite, fabric, string, acrylic, oil, styrofoam, and found objects.
Across these media, the artist’s principal interests lie both in recording the sensory and informational capacities of touch and revealing typically unobserved conduits of energy: ecological, architectural, and corporeal. Dash’s artworks unfold through a “bifocal” approach, where two minds – under the influence of physical and extra-sensory influences - are communing visions, both nearby and remote.
For our fall presentation, N. Dash presents “Untitled” (2020), a new painting comprised of two vertical adobe panels rendered in graphite and black paint, that bookend a weathered rock, cast in plaster. A layer of earth, applied at varying densities over stretched jute with the aid of a trowel, functions as a vital substrate upon which the composition is integrated. Sourced from the desert, this primary building material is sealed beneath layers of paint and graphite, nearly invisible save for the bevelled edges and the small cracks that occur as the adobe/mud dries. These surface fissures lend the painting a topographic quality. The permeability of the adobe and its textural resonance is foundational to Dash’s work, both structurally and as a catalyst for mutual exchange.
The painting has a geometric composition, achieved by embedding lines into the adobe ground. Rectilinear forms are “drawn” with single lengths of string that intersect and wrap around the panel edges at precisely measured angles. In some instances, the string is implanted and then removed from the wet mud before it dries, leaving behind excavations burrowed in the earthy surface. Here, the presence of absence is equal in power to surrounding material. Through these contrasting elements the painting maintains a cultivated tension that is regimentally balanced, just shy of equilibrium.
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N. Dash
Untitled, 2020
Adobe, acrylic, string, graphite, jute, plaster
117 x 27 x 3"/ 297.18 x 68.58 x 7.62
ND2020-006
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N. Dash
Untitled, 2019
Adobe, silkscreen ink, jute
39 x 33"/99.06 x 83.82cm
ND2019-011
While working towards Twenty Twenty, a works on paper exhibition at the Aldrich Museum, Judith Eisler (b. 1962, Newark, NJ) found herself reconsidering her long term relationship to distance, and to the here and now.
Much of Eisler’s work has focused on the world of cinema and, more specifically, iconic actresses from films from the 1960's and 1970's. These figures are an integral part of staged fiction, performing according to script and interpretation. Lighting, camera, hair, makeup, and wardrobe all contribute to the artifice of a filmic presence. With the advent of quarantine, the screen became the site for private broadcasts from both celebrities and ordinary people. The audience is not in the room; the performance occurs without the affirmation of applause.
Eisler is still drawn to cinematic archetypes, however, she has begun to explore images of individuals who perform in real time on the public stage. The artist has shifted her focus to contemporary women who effect change in an immediate and consequential manner. The words and actions of “Nancy," “Stacey," “AOC," and “Kamala" all have a direct bearing on the political landscape, our rights, and especially our perceptions of our own possibility and agency.
“AOC” (2020) is derived from an image of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district, from a congressional hearing on April 12, 2018 in which Cortez was one of 100 lawmakers in the House and Senate to interrogate Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, about the company’s handling of user information, whether the company should be more heavily regulated, if Facebook intentionally censors conservative content, and how much Russians may have meddled with America’s democratic process through the social network. Cortez, the star of Zuckerberg’s two-day public grilling before Congress is rendered as tightly-cropped, single still in oil on canvas. Eisler cleverly incorporates the pixelated striations that often occur when photographing TV monitors, revealing the multi-step process behind her paintings. As the distorted bands of light cascade down Cortez’s demure face, they mimic her furiously persistent, targeted questioning.
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Judith Eisler
AOC, 2020
Oil on canvas
60 x 48"/ 152.4 x 121.92cm
JE2020-013
Liam Gillick (b. 1964, Aylesbury) utilizes materials that resemble everyday built environments, transforming them into minimalist abstractions that deliver poignant commentaries on social constructs, while simultaneously maintaining notions of modernism.
For our fall presentation, Gillick presents an aluminum wall structure in a continued dialogue between aesthetic and functional constructions operating within space. “Flow Rails” (2017) consists of five powder-coated, pipe-like structures displayed vertically on the wall, resembling tubes of conduit or fluorescent lighting. Rendered in black, white, grey and yellow, the wall installation speaks to both histories of minimalism as well as the hidden constructs of our built environment. The work exists in a serial and modular format, suggesting readymade architecture that alters the surrounding space in which it is installed and proposes a new space for conversation and communal discourse.
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Liam Gillick
Flow Rails, 2017
Powder coated aluminum
70.87 x 17.72 x 1.97" / 180 x 45 x 5cm
LG2017-011
Beginning in 1968, Giorgio Griffa (b. 1936, Turin, Italy) developed a painting practice that records “the memory of material," allowing the brush, paint, and canvas to dictate the outcome of his work.
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Giorgio Griffa
Quasi quadrati, 1975
Acrylic on canvas
57 x 73.6" / 145 x 187cm
GG1975-008
By eliminating perspective and narrative, Griffa simply transcribes the process of painting and reduces his markings to repetitive sequences of symbols and lines on un-stretched, raw canvas. He moves slowly across raw canvas on the floor, crouching and kneeling on the material in a way that aligns him with his tools as the canvas becomes the ground for water-based acrylic paints, mixed thinly, to seep and bleed upon application. The rawness of the resulting areas of color, along with large areas of unpainted canvas, gives Griffa’s paintings a provisional feel, emphasizing his convictions about the independent life of materials. The paintings are nailed directly to the wall along their top edge, and when not exhibited, they are folded and stacked, creating an underlying grid for his compositions.
In “Quasi quadrati” (1975), Griffa makes use of a simple sponge to mark a modest, sequential recording of time and space. The resulting irregular grid of imprints vary slightly in thickness, absorption, and color. The starting color is chosen at random and sets the tone for the remaining paints that follow, in effect creating an instinctive and prolonged action that is defined only by its outcome. As each mark informs the next, Griffa seeks only to articulate the movement of his hand, reflecting on the faculty of an anonymous, restrained gesture and its capacity to be both distinctive and integral.
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Brian Jungen’s (b. 1970, Fort St. John, Canada) multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, sculpture, and installation, transforming highly-recognizable objects and symbols associated with Western culture into something new.
An artist of both Swiss and Dane-zaa Nation heritage, Jungen often employs traditional First Nation techniques to deconstruct and re-craft mass-produced commodities. This metamorphosis recalls Jungen’s own observations of life growing up on indigenous reserves in Northwest Canada, where discarded objects are often converted or recycled into other useable forms. Through a pseudo-anthropological approach, Jungen’s artworks combine process and material to engage notions of cultural-hybridity in relation to identity and place.
"Blanket no. 6" is from a 2008 series of artworks that use National Football League (NFL) jerseys as a primary material. In this work, the jerseys of the Minnesota Viking’s running back Adrian Peterson and the Pittsburgh Steeler’s quarterback Ben Roethlisberger are cut into thin strips and hand-woven into a blanket-like tapestry. The blanket hangs within a large shadow-box frame, recalling conventional museological or ethnographic display with a critical undertone.
The blankets were initially inspired by the First Nation’s communal practice of constructing garments for ceremonial rituals, but adopt recognizable, Navajo weaving designs that have been widely-appropriated in Western culture. Employing techniques not primary to his own indigenous linage, Jungen further critiques the homogenization of disparate native cultures, that are often reduced to uniform stereotypes. Jungen mimics this reductive process by literally stripping the jerseys of any legible team brand or player identity. By merging ceremonial histories and the fetishization of American sports paraphernalia, Jungen speaks to different forms of tribalism across culture and time. Complexly layered, the artwork reflects Jungen’s longstanding exploration of cultural symbols, and the consequences of historical reductionism, erasure and denial.
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Brian Jungen
Blanket no. 6, 2008
Professional sports jerseys
50.25 x 46” / 127.63 x 116.84cm
Framed: 60.5 x 57 x 5.75" / 153.7 x 144.8 x 14.6cm
BJ2008-003
The sculptures of Hannah Levy (b. 1991, New York, NY) both incite and repel touch. By manipulating texturally incongruous materials such as silicone and metal, Levy produces tactile structures that arouse an acute bodily awareness.
Her references are broad: medical equipment, hardware, prosthetics, vegetables, and furniture design that are anthropomorphized through welded curves and cast appendages relating to the human form. The scale of recognizable, everyday objects is often distorted to the point of absurdity, resulting in uncanny configurations foregoing their original functionality. Expanding upon the visual language of artists, such as: Eva Hesse, Robert Gober, Louise Bourgeois, and Meret Oppenheim, Levy’s sculptures are defined by their materiality and body consciousness.
“Untitled” (2020) is a free-standing sculpture, fabricated from silicone and steel. The work is formally recognizable as a modern chair, however it is completely nonfunctional - in both scale and engineering. The sleek metal armature is awkwardly sized - too large for a child, but too small for an adult - and appears precariously balanced on two slender legs, punctuated by sharp, claw-like feet. The structure appears to be caught mid-step, as if casually walking out of the room. Exaggerated curves accentuate this anthropomorphism, while also speaking to a perverse eroticism often hidden in modern design. In leu of upholstery, rubbery, flesh-like silicone is stretched over the metal frame in the shape of a tank top, creating a palpable contrast between the absence of a body and Levy’s disparate materials.
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Hannah Levy
Untitled, 2020
Nickel-plated steel, silicone
48.5 x 26 x 24"/ 123.19 x 66.04 x 60.96cm
HL2020-016
Mateo López (b. 1978, Bogotá, Colombia) presents “4/4” (2018), a sculpture comprised of powder coated steel that can be repositioned into varying shapes and configurations.
Using the line as a point of departure, two-dimensional drawings transform into three-dimensional objects. By allowing the line to sculpt various forms, López expands the scope of drawing to consider the medium in time and space, ultimately pushing the boundaries of the page, and our perception of our environment.
López’s move from his hometown of Bogotá, Colombia to New York City in 2014 displaced both body and practice. As his new studio became inhabited with objects and parts from previous works, López entered into a timeless space rife with potential for future making. As past and present combined, the constant that remained was his body. Increasingly aware of his own physicality, López began to imagine himself in a daily, choreographed performance with the multitude of objects that surrounded him in the studio.
“4/4” requires the participation of the viewer to become activated, existing as an object in a continual state of flux. Module-like, in that independent units can be used to construct a more complex structure, the work sits in the center of the gallery’s conference table, surrounded by discourse. Paying heed to the geometry and recurring patterns that exist around us, in our universe, López prompts us to engage and reflect.
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Mateo López
4/4, 2018
Powder coated steel, brass screws
8 x 16 x 16" / 20.32 x 40.64 x 40.64cm
Extends To: 8 x 29 x 11" / 20.32 x 73.66 x 27.94cm
ML2018-004
Since the late 1980s, Jonathan Monk (b. 1969, Leicester, UK) has engaged notions of authorship and identity with a persistent and humorous criticality.
His wide-ranging practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation, all employed in an irreverent scrutinization of the concept of authorship, ownership and originality. Fusing art historical references with his own personal memories, Monk’s work appears both familiar and deviant - each recognizable referent manipulated and re-contextualized into something new.
Through the appropriation of seminal works of art, Monk engages the pervasiveness of art historical icons and the process of canonization. Growing up, the artist self-educated primarily through art books; a practice that deeply informed his understanding of both making and viewing art. The contrast between digital and physical, original and copy, is fundamental to the artist’s oeuvre, both conceptually and materially.
“Wool Piece V” (2020) is sourced from Monk’s own series of “Wool Pieces” (begun in 2014) in which the artist transforms easily recognizable phrases and the familiar graphic block letters of American artist Christopher Wool's paintings into wall-hanging tapestries. Expanding upon his investigation of referent versus reproduction, which inherently calls attention to medium, Monk transforms Wool’s original paintings into literal wool tapestries, executed with a self-aware, slap stick humor. The artwork is handmade with the assistance of a knitting machine, lending a new heart and tactility to its surface. The bold “all-caps” letters “TRBL” are woven in black fiber - the phrase is directly appropriated from Wool, but with a dual nod towards the work’s own playful mischief. This use of “meta-language” is common in Monk’s practice, playing on our memory and knowledge of art history to instigate new dialogues and shifting perspectives. Objects assume their former context, however, within new parameters – they are re-imagined, conceptually stretched, and given new life separate from their original specifications. Through Monk’s idiosyncratic practice, art’s role within the larger structures of commerce and circulation is tested and tried.
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Jonathan Monk
Wool Piece V, 2020
Wool, cotton, metal, eyelets, metal wall fixing
55.5 x 38.5"/ 140.97 x 97.79cm
Edition 4 of 5 + 1AP
JM2020-033.4
Matthew Ronay’s (b. 1976, Louisville, KY) practice is the embodiment of a masterful handling of materials through a fetishistic pursuit of form.
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Matthew Ronay
Numerator/Denominator, 2020
Basswood, dye, gouache, flocking, plastic, steel HMA, cinefoil
11 x 19.25 x 7.25"/ 27.94 x 48.89 x 18..41cm
MR2020-007
Working primarily with basswood, his sculptures are all made by hand; each component carved, whittled, sanded, pierced, dyed, and jointed together into colorful configurations that visually defy their wooden medium. Through this process, Ronay fuses histories of minimalism, abstraction, and American folk art with other non-western methods of art-making and traditional craft. This past spring, during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns, Ronay maintained his rigorous studio practice - shifting away from larger-scale sculptures to return his focus towards a series of intimately scaled and intricately detailed sculptures. Bordering ritualistic, these new artworks require an acute attention to detail and engender a personal, on-on-one experience with the viewer.
Numerator/Denominator (2020) is a meticulously crafted sculpture, with subtle hand-carved features that lend a sense of delicacy, as if wood shavings could peel off at any moment. The surreal structure look as if plucked from an alien ecosystem - something harvested rather than sculptured. A hollow, bulbous base appears to have cracked open like an egg from which new forms sprout. Brittle cinefoil adorns an orange sphere, recalling the ashy tendrils of burnt fiber. The crisp, black foil contrasts sharply with the orange, pink, and red hues of the rest of the sculpture. While the basswood’s grain is clearly visible in many of the work’s components, Ronay’s playful and deliberately vibrant, almost neon palette further pushes the boundary between natural and synthetic.
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The sweeping curvature of “Propagator” (2020), recalls a monumental, geological formation from the American West, such as the grand Arches of Moab, Utah. Densely textured with undulating bumps and grooves, the archway cradles a slender, blue rod that rises vertically from the base of the sculpture. This antenna-like protrusion, that resembles a torch, a decorative column, or an exhaust pipe, is coated in a light blue flocking, giving it a soft velvety texture. A rainbow of wooden forms, stack vertically and uniformly along the right hand side of the structure, adding a pop of colors to the strange, yet familiar dreamscape.
Both sculptures reflect Ronay’s material proficiency and ongoing formal play. With references to biological and botanical forms, as well as futuristic technology and cityscapes, Ronay’s phantasmagoric creations give shape to a combination of subconscious imagery, and immediate intuitive sensations.
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Matthew Ronay
Propagator, 2020
Basswood, dye, gouache, flocking, plastic, steel
16 x 10.25 x 7"/ 40.64 x 26.03 x 17.78cm
MR2020-008
