Sarp Kerem Yavuz’s AI Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire

Above: Sarp Kerem Yavuz. “Manço,” 2023. Polaroid, 4.2 x 3.4 in. Courtesy of the artist.

This article was originally published in Cultbytes on June 22, 2023.

By Alexandra Goldman

Turkish-French artist Sarp Kerem Yavuz loves photographing handsome men. His various bodies of work include sculptural photo-portraits of nude male models adorned with projected imagery of ornate Turkish Bathhouse tiles, sensuous, homoerotic photos of young American men convening in sports locker rooms (another homosocial space), and mixed media including neons, works on LED screens, and a functioning backgammon board created entirely out of Legos.

Sarp Kerem Yavuz, “Bahçivan,” 2022. Glicée print, 40 x 30 in. Courtesy of of the artist.

Thematically, Kerem Yavuz’s artwork is a reflection of himself: both Turkish and gay. These two elements haven’t historically been able to mix without conflict in his life, and he has always been interested in exploring those challenges. “For the last decade, I’ve been interested in deconstructing masculinity within an Islamic context. I often do this by queering (arguably already queer) orientalist imagery. My largest body of work to date, Maşallah, comprised of scanned Iznik tiles and later, scanned porcelain dinnerware, projected on male nudes to talk about the superimposition of conservative politics onto my generation. I would also periodically visit various Turkish baths to create cinematic scenes that were meant to imply the existence of broader, imagined, queer narratives unfolding in these traditional homo-social spaces. I guess I could say that I was always more interested in the story than the particular medium, although I am partial to photography.” Now that he lives and works in New York City, Kerem Yavuz is able to openly express these two important facets of his identity without suffering censorship from the Turkish government and death threats, among other significant challenges he has faced that many people may not have the courage to stand up to in the name of creative expression.

Sarp Kerem Yavuz. “Boğaz,” 2023. Polaroid. 4.2 x 3.4 in. Courtesy of the artist.

This year, he expanded upon his traditional art and photography practice by utilizing the AI software, Midjourney, to create AI-generated imagery for his latest series: Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire, currently on view at Palo gallery in NoHo. He discovered Midjourney “while looking into new digital art trends…its aesthetic capabilities felt more in line with my style than Dall-E.” The cinematic images on view in the exhibition Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire include images of two fit, ostensibly Turkish, shirtless men romantically gazing at the moonlight over a Mosque along the Bosphorus, a bejeweled drag queen making her grand entrance in an invented 1920s-style speakeasy nightclub in Istanbul, and bust-style portraits of handsome, turban-clad men gazing seductively at the viewer from inside a Hammam setting, among other fantasy, homoerotic, faux-vintage Turkish narratives.

The lighting in each of Kerem Yavuz’s AI-generated images is filmic and romantic, with mainly dark or jewel-tone color palettes. There are also a few black-and-white shots included in the series, which feel a bit out of place when thinking of traditional Polaroids. Some of Kerem Yavuz’s AI images are reminiscent of the style of a Jacques-Louis David painting, among other art-historical references and sources of stylistic inspiration. The Polaroid borders Kerem Yavuz chooses to print each image within – because no one likes to see a Polaroid without that iconic built-in bottom-heavy frame – are black, white, or gold. Before framing, Kerem Yavuz finally mounts each printed Polaroid on a mat, which represents a common color of velvet in traditional Ottoman interior decorating.

Importantly, Kerem Yavuz also shoots with real Polaroid film in a different series of his work, Shadows of the Empire, photographing staged scenes of his friends in Istanbul that comment on parallels between LGBTQ+ and women’s rights being taken away in both Turkey and the United States in recent years. “Shadows of the Empire” is currently on view at Zero Bond, where he is this month’s artist in residence via Apostrophe gallery. It is not easy to tell the difference between Kerem Yavuz’s real Polaroids and his AI-generated Polaroids. It’s clear Kerem Yavuz is using AI to mimic and expand upon his own photographic language, rather than copying another artist’s style: a major current plagiaristic danger of AI in the digital art space.

Sarp Kerem Yavuz. “Away,” 2022. Gold Frame Polaroid, 4.2 x 3.4 in. Courtesy of the artist.

For Kerem Yavuz, as both a traditional photographer and AI artist, the inevitable element of financial investment also comes into consideration. Kerem Yavuz elaborates, “I think most people who insist on traditional photography tend to forget how extraordinarily expensive high-end digital photo shoots are. Buying a decent medium format digital camera, which is what I have been using for the past decade, runs you between $10,000-$20,000. You can rent, but then you also need to get really good equipment insurance so that tends to be around $1000 for a week of shooting, just for a camera with a regular lens attached with a spare battery and some flash drives, (not including any lights, stands, sandbags to keep the stands where they are, portable batteries, backdrops, studio space if you need it etc.). Then, there is the additional cost of paying models, assistants, and the time cost of processing and editing the images, plus transportation if you are shooting on location. I have done all of these for years, and I have greatly enjoyed the process, but it is a costly endeavor, which often means you need commercial work to be able to afford to make artistic work. It is also incredibly time consuming. AI photography, at least in the way I have been engaging in it, feels a little more like street photography, where the production element is removed in favor of chance and spontaneity. It’s trickier to get what you want, since there is inevitably a lesser degree of control, but it does offer a greater degree of access to people without the means or the network to dive into photography as it is structured today.”

Whether shot in the flesh or rendered digitally, iconic gay male nude portrait photography can call to mind the explicitly sexual, stark, sensuous, and formidable black and whites by Robert Mapplethorpe, or perhaps the striking, colorful photography of nude or semi-nude male dancers and religious figures in fantastical staged scenes by David LaChapelle. Unlike Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photography, Kerem Yavuz’s is understated in its eroticism. Unlike LaChapelle’s staged fantasy photography, Kerem Yavuz’s imaginary gay scenes incorporate an Ottoman visual language and color palette. Kerem Yavuz has his own visual language, and experiments with the reverse process using Midjourney to see how it categorizes his original images. “What is fascinating about Midjourney and other internet-based algorithms is that their ‘imagination’ is ultimately shaped by whatever dominates the web. Midjourney has a fun tool that allows you to upload your own images and have it describe them to you. With my photographs, it often says ‘in the style of Hasan Hajjaj’ which is flattering, as I love his work, but I was never inspired by his practice and our aesthetics are quite different. It just goes to show that online media and discourse around Middle Eastern imagery has a long way to go.”

Sarp Kerem Yavuz. “Sahilde,” 2023. Polaroid. 4.2 x 3.4 in. Courtesy of the artist.

The subtly erotic and Middle-Eastern qualities of Kerem Yavuz’s photography stem from his relationship with his father, or the idea of “the father-son relationship.” When Kerem Yavuz came out at age thirteen, his father did not accept his homosexuality and was consequently absent for most of his life. Today, the two are estranged. When asked if he knows other artists working with the idea of the father-son relationship, Kerem Yavuz replied that the father-son relationship is a very vulnerable topic, in almost a banal way. He commented, “Mapplethorpe’s hypersexualilty functioned almost as a protective armor – people don’t accept regular male vulnerability, which is what my work speaks to.”

Another through line in Kerem Yavuz’s artistic career is he is frequently ahead of the curve as an innovator, which, he commented, “can be lonely at times when no one yet understands [his] ideas.” AI is a contentious topic worldwide in industries spanning art, tech, medicine, politics, law, advertising, and many more. In photography specifically, it is already a topic that has entered the forefront of the conversation. Recently, German Photographer Boris Eldagsen won a photography award with his AI-generated photograph (created on Dall-E 2 software), The Electrician, at the Sony World Photography Awards, and declined to accept the award because of his concern for how AI will affect (and compete with) the photography world overall. That perspective is understandable, as the judges of the award were unable to discern his AI-generated photograph from real photographs in the competition.

Kerem Yavuz’s AI Polaroids and “real” Polaroids also look similar to one another. There is something about the people or settings in the AI-generated images that is a “little too perfect,” which can give them away upon close examination, but it’s not always obvious which are which. The catch is that none of the people or places in the AI-generated imagery are real, and they all appear to exist in an unknown, historical place and time in a Turkish, Ottoman past. They’re like memories from a homoerotic dream version of Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire, that never existed, nor would have been able to exist, because of the Ottoman Empire’s extreme homophobia. Kerem Yavuz commented on his inspiration for the series,“I loved the notion that in a parallel universe, I would have been traipsing around a present-day Ottoman Empire, photographing my queer friends in various places in Istanbul.”

Sarp Kerem Yavuz. “Banyo,” 2023. Polaroid. 4.2 x 3.4 in. Courtesy of the artist

Even though Kerem Yavuz’s AI-generated images look – in one way or another – “real”, with Kerem Yavuz’s title of the series, he “confesses” another hint into the photographs’ fictional origins: while the Ottoman Empire ended in World War I, Polaroids were not invented until World War II. Therefore through just his title, Kerem Yavuz lets viewers know his Polalroids from the Ottoman Empire are technical impossibilities.

For Kerem Yavuz, Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire is also about the “believability” of images in the current AI era. However, questioning the believability of photography, while now heightened due to AI, isn’t new. Falsified imagery in photography has been explored since Yves Klein’s 1960 Leap Into the Void, in which Klein created an early, analogue visual illusion to “document” a man jumping out of a window even though it never really happened. Edward Weston’s 1920s and ‘30s vegetable still lives, Peppers, look at first glance like black and white photo portraits of muscular male torsos, tricking the eye at first glance. With the eventual invention of Photoshop and an infinite array of postproduction effects and image-generating software, the notion of photography as solely a medium that documents reality is nearly a century gone. Kerem Yavuz’s decision to print his images on Polaroids is another layer of his trickery: “Polaroids bring a plausibility to the narrative because we are culturally conditioned to think of them as documents. No one thinks a Polaroid is faked, even though the technology to expose images onto a Polaroid digitally has existed for a decade,” he emphasized.

To create the AI Polaroids, Kerem Yavuz teaches Midjourney software how to make an image look gay, glamorous, exotic, romantic, antique, Ottoman, or express other features simultaneously, using his words. He even gets specific in the sense of telling the software, “make this image look like it was shot with a Nikon 110 millimeter lens,” or “give me an image of two men in front of a mosque in Istanbul in the style of Jodorowsky,” and the software generates that effect or visual. Through repeated processes of trial and error, Kerem Yavuz communicates different combinations of these key words to the software until he gets his desired imagery in return – a tedious practice that requires a lot of patience and nuanced communication between man and machine. Each time, the AI software transforms Kerem Yavuz’s permutations of adjectives into generated imagery based on other imagery it has been introduced to previously online. Kerem Yavuz explains, “In photography, we often shoot the same shot hundreds of times with small tweaks and iterations. This also applies to AI-generated imagery, where sometimes Midjourney will give me almost what I’m looking for, but not quite, so I will spend hours telling it to iterate on one specific thing. Sometimes, in both cases, the image just doesn’t work. Or you end up needing to edit in post.” As result of the collaboration between Kerem Yavuz and Midjourney (which actually lives on Discord – a platform he describes comically as “the unholy love child of Reddit and WhatsApp”), the scenarios in the imagery look, to some degree, believable.

A serious problem with this, that Kerem Yavuz recognizes and addresses, is Midjourney software’s inherent biases. He remarked that he has noticed, through his use of this software to create his imagery, that if he asks it for an image of “two handsome men,” it will most often provide images of two white men. If he asks for “two gay men,” it will similarly give him images of men covered in rainbow clothing, or holding Pride flags. It barely understands when he asks it for images of “two men kissing” and shows him images of two men pecking on the cheek rather than engaged in any type of romantic kissing. There is very obvious heterosexual, white, cisgender bias in this process that Kerem Yavuz continues to notice, critique, and do extra work to find ways around to get his desired image results, repeatedly putting the technology to the test.

Like artists and photographers working throughout history, Kerem Yavuz is working with the technology of his time. It’s not long ago that everyone was talking nonstop about NFTs – now, the new buzzword is AI. There’s inevitably a coalescence of the two as well. Many question if either of these two technologies have potential to exist on par with more traditional art forms. But, more than just buzzwords, there is real artistry in the conceptual aspect, detailed communication technique, choice of software, printing and exhibiting decisions, visual composition, color palette, light source simulation, and more that Kerem Yavuz employs to create his AI-generated imagery for his Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire.

Conversations today about AI – across industries and contexts – often involve sensationalist notions of “Is it good?” “Is it bad?” “Is it scary?” “Are we doomed?” What I think Kerem Yavuz is proving with Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire is that there is a way to authentically make original art using AI software as a tool. When executed thoughtfully and with the level of care and critique he uses, art creation becomes one of the technology’s positives. He concludes, “In its current form, I feel like AI is making poets of us all, and I find that delightful.”

Sarp Kerem Yavuz’s solo exhibition Polaroids from the Ottoman Empire is on view at Palo Gallery until July 1st, 2023 and Shadows of the Empire is on view at Zero Bond.

An Unsellable Show During a Major Art Fair

Above: Michael Sailsltorfer: Clearing at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City. Courtesy of the author.

This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine.

Michael Sailstorfer: Clearing on view at Proyectos Monclova through April 1, 2023. Courtesy of the author.

By Alexandra Goldman

It would behoove most for-profit galleries to feature a sellable show to run concurrently with their local major art fair. At this year’s nineteenth edition of Zona Maco in Mexico City, the prominent Polanco gallery Proyectos Monclova made the bold decision to instead display a highly unsellable installation by Michael Sailstorfer in its main ground floor exhibition space.

Last year in the same gallery space during Zona Maco, Proyectos Monclova presented a solo exhibition of about fifty intimately sized, colorful, square wall-hanging works by Gabriel De La Mora titled, Psicotropical. Far from what one might imagine as traditional geometric abstract paintings or op-art, De La Mora’s works on view were mosaics created out of exquisite organic materials, such as naturally iridescent butterfly wings and obsidian. They look like abstract paintings from a distance, but up close, reveal themselves to be technically intricate, perplexing conceptual art objects that, fortunately for the gallery, would look breathtaking in most living rooms.

This year, Monclova’s ground floor gallery instead featured a minimalist kinetic sculpture exhibition by Sailstorfer (b. Germany, 1979) titled, Clearing. Vastly different from Psicotropical, Clearing comprises only one single installation titled, Forst (a German word that, according to the gallery’s Instagram, means, “an area of trees created for the commercial production of wood” and does not directly translate to English nor Spanish). In 2012, Sailsltorfer won Germany’s prestigious Vattenfall Contemporary award for Forst, based on the idea that the project “pays tribute to the artistic position that re-questions and extends the classical concept of sculpture,” according to Berlinische Gallery.

Michael Sailsltorfer: Clearing at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City. Courtesy of the author.

Without necessarily being aware of the Vattenfall Contemporary award’s ability to perfectly pinpoint the success of this project, this “re-questioning” and “extending the classical concept of sculpture” is exactly what being in the presence of Forst calls on viewers to ponder. Inside Proyectos Monclova’s white-cube gallery space (with twenty-foot ceilings), visitors find themselves immediately confronted with three larger than life, upside-down trees, slowly and methodically twirling in different directions propelled by giant metal mechanical arms, like dystopian jewelry box ballerinas in an unfolding horror film of climate crisis.

Thematically, the project speaks to the environment. Each time Saillstorfer installs Forst (to date it has been installed in multiple global locations), he instructs to install it with trees that are local to the site of the installation, and that were already fallen or cut down (he does not cut down trees to create the project). At Proyectos Monclova, all three trees in Forst are from the Mexico City area.

Proyectos Monclova’s Director and Senior Partner Polina Stroganova noted that in this version of the installation, two evergreen trees and one deciduous tree are included, because for the artist, three evergreens would look “too Christmas-y.” Forst has also previously been installed with five trees instead of three, and there is no specific instruction regarding the angles or distances at which the trees need to be positioned in relation to one another in any iteration of the installation.

The trees are not all intended to spin in the same direction, as this would look too mechanical. In Proyectos Monclova’s presentation of Forst, the evergreens on the left side of the room orbit counterclockwise, while the deciduous tree between them on the right mirrors with a clockwise rotation.

Michael Sailsltorfer: Clearing at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City. Courtesy of the author.

Forst also speaks to the passage of time. As the trees swirl around, they’re positioned so that they press and drag against the gallery floor in a way that progressively “draws” perfect circular markings around them like protractors. Saillstorfer intends for some of the branches to brush lightly against the gallery walls as well, leaving evolving streaks. Is this mark-making beautiful, or destructive? How intentional is it, versus left to chance? It is a combination of both, and an integral part of the work. The tension between the organic forms of the trees on view, and the way they decay over time inside the gallery, in opposition with the perfect, geometric circles their perpetual movements each create on the surrounding interior architecture, paired with the powerful mechanical metal beams of their spinning support apparati, create a perfect recipe for Sailstorfer’s man/machine-versus-nature metaphor. Sometimes the combination produces beauty, and sometimes it produces destruction.

Representing the best of minimalist sculpture, Forst gives viewers the awe-inspiring physiological sensation by way of proximity to the art, similar to being around a Richard Serra. The scent of the trees, the sound of them brushing against the floor and walls, and the sound of the mechanical mechanisms, all also become a part of Forst’s multi-sensory experience. Visitors are welcome to wander through Sailstorfer’s man-made indoor “forest” and experience themselves as part of the surreal full-room composition. Sailstorfer’s angled metal beams supporting and spinning the trees are a practical choice, but also a clear aesthetic homage to minimalist sculpture’s quintessential incorporation of industrial materials.

Unlike pure minimalist sculpture, Sailsltorfer’s Forst is also kinetic sculpture. If you think of Alexander Calder as the godfather of kinetic sculpture, you might think of kinetic sculpture initially as man-made elements (such as metal, sculpted elements) put in motion by natural forces such as wind or gravity. Forst is the exact inversion of that, as it comprises natural elements (the trees) put into motion by man-made forces (the mechanical arms).

Perhaps the only things that Gabriel De La Mora and Michael Sailstorfer have in common are that they are both well-established talented artists, with very keen eyes for tactfully incorporating nature into their art, even though this manifests in wildly different ways in their practices. One of Sailstorfer’s previous projects included painting a square of earth in a forest with black paint, video-recording it from above as the black paint square eroded over time due to natural elements, and broadcasting the erosion video feed inside a gallery.

By exhibiting Clearing during Zona Maco this year, Proyectos Monclova makes clear that it is a forward-thinking gallery that chose to present itself with an unforgettable institutional installlation, prioritizing its identity, integrity, and experience over sales numbers during a key annual moment in which international eyes are on them. And perhaps, if it hasn’t happened already, a major institution will swing by and acquire the piece. Michael Sailstorfer: Clearing will remain on view at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City until April 1, 2023.

Zoe Young’s Hollywood Dinner Party Daydreams

Above image: Installation view, Zoe Young: Still. Life. Courtesy of Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.).

This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art

By Alexandra Goldman

Still. Life., a strong solo exhibition of sizeable still life paintings by Australian artist Zoe Young, opened October 15th as the third successful exhibition collaboration between Gruin Gallery, founded by formerly New York-based gallerist Emerald Gruin, and domicile (n.), an innovative East Hollywood multi-modal artist project space created by Cyrus Etemad and curator Margot Ross. Still. Life., Young’s first breakout solo exhibition in the U.S., will remain on view at domicile (n.) in LA’s Merrick Building until November 22nd , 2021.

Zoe Young and Emerald Gruin met one another while studying together at the National Arts School in Sydney over a decade ago, and have since maintained a friendship and mutual appreciation for one another’s work. Still. Life. represents a consummation of their meaningful relationship over many years.

The title of the exhibition, Still. Life., is immediately sobering. Young created all the still life paintings in this exhibition during pandemic quarantine lockdown in Australia, isolated and alone in her studio. By breaking up the two words, it poses questions and presents thoughts about these words individually. What does it mean to be still? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be separated, when you’re used to being together? And, most importantly, when and how does life still go on? These reflections are all embodied in each of Young’s still life paintings.

Australia had one of the world’s strictest pandemic travel regulations, only opening its borders for the first time after twenty months this week on November 1, 2021. Young’s artistic practice frequently included portraits and other figurative imagery of people prior to the pandemic, however in lockdown, she turned to the still life, focusing on the decadence and pleasure of objects in the absence of people.

Young is a multi-year finalist of Australia’s Archibald Prize, which is considered Australia’s most prestigious award for portraiture. When there are not people around to paint, what could better express the stories of people than their things? Young’s paintings in Still. Life. are in this way imagined portraits of people, showing evidence of their tastes and existence through books, cassette tapes, food, drink, and décor without revealing their physicality.

Zoe Young, Squid ink pasta for breakfast before breakfast at Tiffany’s, 2021, Acrylic on Belgian linen, 59 x 59 x 1 5/8 ” (150 x 150 x 4 cm). Courtesy of Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.).

Each painting details one of Young’s imagined fantasy dinner parties in Tinseltown, which she yearned for while in solitude. The artist had never been to LA, but always dreamed of going to experience its patina, glamour, and allure. The lengthy quarantine she weathered only heightened her desire to bring these fantasies to life through her art: both of traveling, and intermingling with people in the most basic of ways. There is a unique joy that comes from clinking glasses and sharing food off of the same plates as others, evident in Young’s paintings.

Formally, the works show off the artist’s hand with generously applied paint and visible brush strokes. Young’s soft, Francophile color palette is optimistic, with what feels like dappled sunlight pouring into each scene and highlighting the architecture of her objects. Young’s style of painting is reminiscent of Matisse, Alice Neel, and Wayne Thiebaud. Some moments in the paintings reveal Young’s affinity for French culture by way of certain wines, cheeses, Louis Vuitton, perfume, and even a tiny French flag on a toothpick, while others such as fish heads and lemons recall 17^th century Dutch vanitas still lives. One of my favorite moments in the exhibition is how, in the work “Chablis, Surf shacks + Olives”, 2021, Young paints the reflection of a striped tablecloth refracting within a white wine glass, demonstrating her attention to detail and technical prowess.

The paintings also evoke a cross-continental playfulness and sense of humor. Young’s scenes often pretend to feature L.A. beaches, but as many Australians may recognize, actually depict Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Nods to surf culture from both California and Australia make appearances throughout the exhibition, and in an Oscar Wildian fashion, Young paints herself into her work fusing her own name onto one of her painted book covers.

Zoe Young, Bribery and corruption over brunch, 2021, Acrylic on Belgian linen, 68 1/8 x 88 1/4 x 1 3/8 ” (173 x 224 x 3.5 cm). Courtesy of Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.).

Finally, many of the fruits in young’s still life paintings are fabulously mythological and sexual, such as pomegranates, strawberries, pears, grapefruits, and avocadoes; a possible commentary on the desire for human touch, absent for many in isolation during the pandemic. Several of these fruits also grow in gardens in both Australia and California, linking the two geographic regions. Emerald Gruin holds gardening dear to her heart as gardening was her mother’s lifelong passion and exceptional talent. Therefore the heavy presence of flowers, fruits and vegetables throughout this exhibition is additionally an important connection between artist and gallerist.

Young was deeply saddened believing for a long time that due to the continued lockdown in Australia, she would not be able to make it to her own first ever U.S. exhibition in LA. However, because of the recent opening up of Australia’s travel restrictions on November 1^st, Young will finally travel to Los Angeles. In her honor, Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.) extended the exhibition and will be hosting a real Hollywood dinner party for Young in the gallery space, surrounded by her paintings, with plans to have the real dinner mirror the aesthetics in the paintings. It seems for this powerful, manifesting artist, that fantasies do come true.

Zoe Young, Still. Life. is on view at Gruin Gallery x domicile (n.) in the Merrick Building, 4859 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, from October 15 – November 22, 2021.

This Fall in New York, Crystals Become a Favorite Medium

Above detail image courtesy of Alteronce Gumby and False Flag Gallery, New York, NY, 2021.

By Alexandra Goldman

I give and receive crystals as gifts. I believe in their energetic power for channeling different qualities into and out of our lives. Whether it’s love, openness, abundance, strength, clarity, protection, release…they’re magical.

What I hadn’t expected to see, was a profusion of crystals in contemporary art and its exhibitions culminating in one New York moment. By this I mean Art with a capital A, at major museums, art fairs, and galleries. My recent viewing experiences have led me to believe the moment for crystals in Art has arrived.

Medieval artists evoked divinity through religious art, magnificent cathedrals and stained glass windows. Romantic artists explored the sublime in nature. Later 19th and earlier 20th century painters like Hilma Af Klint and Agnes Pelton channeled spirituality through abstract forms.

It’s no wonder that following the apocalyptic despair of 2020, multiple artists today are either consciously or subconsciously eager to incorporate a material into their work that traditionally possesses properties for spiritual connectivity and otherworldly transcendence. While that overarching idea feels clear to me, each artist’s decision to include crystals in their work also has nuanced meaning specific to that work, so I encourage paying attention to what makes each unique in its context as well.

Within this past month, I came across four unrelated NYC-based art exhibitions that each incorporate crystals, which compelled me to take notice and write this brief article. The following is a photo essay of these beautiful – and wonderfully diverse – examples of artwork currently (or recently) on view featuring crystals in New York City. You can still catch many of them on view this week, for a serving of culture with a side of soul healing.

Alteronce Gumby at False Flag Gallery, The Armory Show 2021 (No longer on view)

Artwork and detail images courtesy of the artist and False Flag Gallery, New York, NY, 2021.

Deana Lawson, “Centropy” at The Guggenheim (On view until October 11th)

Installation images of “Deana Lawson: Centropy” courtesy of the artist and Artifactoid, New York, NY, 2021.

Alison Elizabeth Taylor, “Future Promise” at James Cohan Gallery (On view until October 23rd)

Artwork and installation images from “Alison Elizabeth Taylor: Future Promise” courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY, 2021.

“This End the Sun”, a collaborative exhibition by artists Maryam Hoseini, Rindon Johnson, and Jordan Strafer at The New Museum (On view until October 3rd)

Installation images of “This End the Sun” courtesy of the artists and Green Art Gallery, New York, NY, 2021.

“Agents” (2020) by Anastasia Sosunova: Covid-era Lithuanian Fantasy Film in a Dark Corner of The New Museum

Above image: Anastasia Sosunova, Agents, 2020 (still). Video, color, sound; 14:57 min. Courtesy the artist. Video commissioned for “Roots to Routes,” 2020, curated by Juste Kostikovaite, Maija Rudovska and Merilin Talumaa, with the support of the Baltic Culture Fund.

This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.

By Alexandra Goldman

17 August, 2021

The Screens Series, “a platform for the presentation of new video works by emerging contemporary artists,” is a hidden gem tucked in the basement of The New Museum. Its current iteration, “Screens Series: Anastasia Sosunova” curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari, comprises three videos by Sosunova (b. 1993, Ignalia, Lithuania). Her 14:26 minute video titled, “Agents”, 2020, looks critically at the idea of tradition, questions reality, and considers the role of the artist as filmmaker, philosopher, craftsperson, and creator of tradition.

The New Museum notes, “Sousnova’s recent works have explored popular folk traditions, post-Soviet national identity, and the tension between public and private space in the Covid-era, among many other topics. [Her videos] mix historical research and creative fiction to examine tenuously constructed feelings of community and belonging.” With “Agents”, Sosunova channels universal ideas through a hyper-local scenario.

“Agents” opens with a scene of a woman and man driving a car slowly into the woods. They park amidst the trees, as if in a horror movie. The two engage in whispering a conversation in what I’d imagine is Lithuanian, with English subtitles. The conversation is noted at the start of the film to have been scripted for artistic purposes. Viewers find out later in the film that the forest was one of the only places people were allowed to go outside during Covid-19 quarantine in Lithuania. Music is playing.

Anastasia Sosunova, Agents, 2020 (still). Video, color, sound; 14:57 min. Courtesy the artist. Video commissioned for “Roots to Routes,” 2020, curated by Juste Kostikovaite, Maija Rudovska and Merilin Talumaa, with the support of the Baltic Culture Fund.

“We should turn it off, otherwise, we’ll scare them,” the woman says. While watching, I imagined the woman, who is in the driver’s seat, to be Sosunova. The man in the passenger’s seat seems to be a Lithuanian folk sculptor (or an actor playing one) – in other words, it could be argued that, in this filmed conversation, he, the craftsperson, is the “artist”, while the artist, Sosunova, is the “interviewer”. The woman continues, “You know, I’m very grateful that you agreed to talk in these circumstances. I thought at some point the things we create live their own lives, one can even say they come to life, and I begin to think of folk art conspiratorially.”

Sosunova immediately places the viewer in a cinematic vantage point mediated by fantasy, inducing a required suspension of disbelief. The protagonists are shot through what looks like a blasted hole in the middle of a strange animated wooden totem face framing their Socratic conversation. Both protagonists remain fairly anonymous throughout the duration of the film, as they are only shot with one camera angle from behind, revealing the backs of their heads and a slight profile at most, creating a disorienting effect. Viewers of the film get to know these characters mostly through their voices, dialogue, the deliberateness with which they speak, and their mutual respect for the conversation at hand. Viewers also get to know the sculptor through alternating camera shots of his weathered hands and dirty fingernails, that have surely been carving wood for decades, flipping through old photo albums of crafts and sculptures he either has created or references for inspiration.

In the car, the pair seems intent on encountering what Sosunova describes as a “Golem” or “Cyclopse-like” living version of Lithuanian wooden folk sculpture: the embodiment of tradition taking on a life of its own after it is created. According to the sculptor, the original inanimate wooden folk sculptures are left in the forest every year following a week-long festival for which people come from all different regions to carve traditional wooden folk sculptures in the shapes of different woodland creatures, religious figures, or folkloric characters, and have them judged. After the festival they are abandoned in the forest, and because of this tradition, the forest is now filled with mythical man-made creatures.

But, is tradition good or bad? The interviewer (assumed to be Sosunova) proposes, “I am interested, you know, in learning how much we can give up primary meanings that are in these images, and how much the symbols themselves control us if we use them thoughtlessly…for instance, Ancient Greek legends about Cyclops were born after the Greeks found old elephant skulls who used to inhabit that peninsula, and thought those were one-eyed giants that actually lived there. This is how I also thought about the Lithuanian tradition of devil depiction, it is so mystified, but in fact it is for the most part an iconography of anti-Semitism. What should we do with those images?” The film examines where both religious and secular symbols come from, who is creating what, why, when, and for whom.

Later in the script, the sculptor shares a more vulnerable side of himself, adding another layer of openness and universality to the video. He comments, “Well, a few hundred years ago, when creating those folk sculptures, no one thought about traditions, a person did something from the heart. If a person creates a thing from the heart today, then after a few years there will be a tradition of some sort. The most important thing to do is make it from the heart. In the past, I was more critical, when I was younger, but now I think – let people make what they need. Sure, I don’t like it when people fool around, when it starts being all about fooling around it’s irritating. But otherwise, let the people do their thing, not my business, whatever people like should exist.” There is a relatable realness and resignation in this statement that rings very true after (and arguably unfortunately still during) the global pandemic, like a prophecy of the post(?)-pandemic art world: “Sure, I don’t like it when people fool around, [but]…whatever people like should exist,” with haunting simplicity.

The cloudy atmosphere and muted color palette of the setting of the video evoke an overall greyness, which reminds me of the abundance of grey architecture in Eastern Europe and the lingering evidence of communism and former Soviet control. However, with “Agents”, Sosunova emphasizes there is magic emerging within this greyish environment. What is unknown is if it is light or dark magic. To what extent are Sosunova’s CGI golems of tradition benign or treacherous? And what is the artist’s responsibility in the face of them?

The overall feeling of not being able to know what time of day it is in the video is also compelling. The setting seems to transition at different points from morning to afternoon, to twilight, in no particular order. There’s an oneiric sense of space and time throughout the film, enhanced by the abrupt stopping and starting of hypnotic video game music featuring tracks by Sro and Blear Moon.

Visitors to The New Museum will note Sosunova’s CV to date comprises mostly exhibitions in Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. It’s incredible to see great emerging art like Sosunova’s from other global regions, here New York. The experience of this video is at once very familiar and an immersion into Lithuanian subconscious.

“Agents”, 2020 by Anastasia Sosunova is on view at The New Museum from 30 June – 22 August, 2021. WM

Podcast: Alexandra Goldman in conversation with Franklin Evans at Miles McEnery Gallery

Above: Franklin Evans and Alexandra Goldman in his Studio, 2021, New York, NY.

This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.

The Whitehot Magazine Art World Podcast, season 2 E20:

LINK TO PODCAST: Alexandra Goldman in conversation with Franklin Evans on the occasion of his show at New York’s Miles McEnery Gallery.

Alexandra Goldman sits down with artist Franklin Evans to discuss his two current exhibitions at Miles McEnery Gallery, fugitivemisreadings at 520 West 21st Street, and YOU AGAIN curated by Franklin Evans at 511 West 22nd Street, as well as his current museum show Franklin Evans: franklinsfootpaths at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.

FRANKLIN EVANS (b. in 1967 in Reno, NV) received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University in 1989 and his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1993. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including “Franklinsfootpaths” at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA; “fugitivemisreadings ” at Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “selfportraitas” at FL Gallery, Milan, Italy; and “timepaths” at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV. His work is included in many public and private collections including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; the Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL; the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH, and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. He is a recipient of the 2017-18 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, NY; The Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL in 2017; and was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow at The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH in 2016. Evans lives and works in New York, NY.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, Franklin Evans: fugitivemisreadings, 24 June – 31 July 2021. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

Franklin Evans, misreadinglandscapeintoart, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 53 1/2 x 49 1/4 inches, 135.9 x 125.1 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

Franklin Evans Studio, 2021, New York, NY. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

Franklin Evans, titianatilt (detail), 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 79 1/2 x 68 3/4 inches, 201.9 x 174.6 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

Installation view: Franklin Evans: franklinsfootpaths at the Figge Art Museum, 19 June – 26 September 2021, Davenport, IA. Image courtesy of the Figge Art Museum.

Works by Ann Pibal, Elliott Green, Josephine Halvorson, and Tom McGrath in YOU AGAIN curated by Franklin Evans at Miles McEnery Gallery. New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, ‘YOU AGAIN’ curated by Franklin Evans, 24 June – 31 July 2021. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artists and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

Virtual Studio Visit: Emma Balder

Above: Emma Balder, Harmony, 2020. Recycled fabrics, rope, bungee, paper, acrylic, and thread on canvas, 40 x 81 x 3″. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Jay Marroquin.

By Alexandra Goldman

This month I was excited to be connected for a virtual studio visit with Houston-based artist Emma Balder by my friend, colleague, and mentor, Dr. Jose Falconi, Lecturer of Latin American art at Brandeis University.

Balder was born in Boston in 1990. She grew up curiously watching her mother sew costumes for her and her siblings, and as a young teen experimented with cutting up and sewing her own clothing. She later earned her BFA from SCAD with a background in painting, and has since shifted toward heavily incorporating sewing and fiber art into her practice using recycled materials.

Emma Balder’s studio, Houston, TX. Courtesy of the artist.

She began integrating textile waste into her practice during her formative year-long residency at the Vermont Studio Center, where she was given bags of the recycled scrap cloth material as a gift by a fellow resident who had an excess of it and couldn’t take it traveling overseas. Since then, Balder has continued to collect textile waste from seamstresses and fashion designers. “There is so much waste, and it bothered me, but I saw beauty in it,” Balder noted. Additional examples interesting artists who work with recycled textiles include Tamara Kostianovsky and Linda Friedman-Schmidt. The interpretations of the medium by these three artists is vastly different, showing off its vast potential.

Her colorful organically shaped works fall into two main categories: “Pinglets”, which are (often stuffed) three-dimensional wall pieces that Balder creates by completing a painting, cutting it up, and re-stitching it together in new compositions mixed with other recycled textiles, and “Fiber Paintings”, in which Balder “paints” on paper and panel with colorful thread, using the thread itself as the paint. A fervent environmentalist, working with recycled fiber materials is of utmost importance to Balder.

Emma Balder, Magnet of Hope (detail), 2019. Fibers, graphite, acrylic and micron on paper, 30 x 40″. Photography © Jay Marroquin; Artwork © Emma Balder

On her website, Balder notes, “The Pinglet project documents a process of regeneration. This project began with the physical deconstruction of one painting, the Ping. The disjuncture of parts were then rearranged and reconstructed with needle and thread to form small baby paintings, called Pinglets.” Pings are usually abstract landscapes of around 12 x 8 ft. Balder knows to cut up the Ping at the moment she is satisfied with it, believing the moment that you become complacent, it is time to catalyze change and reignite the creativity that comes from vulnerability.

Following our studio visit I’ve come to understand why Balder has named one of her main artwork styles a made up word such as a “Pinglet”: Balder is principally interested in creating artwork as a manifestation of her own world on her own terms: a place to escape to and live in; both a new world and a new home. In a Derridean sense, this logically begins with creating and defining her own language to refer to her new world without relying on preexisting terms. In her work she creates a beautiful synergy by deconstructing and reconstructing both the physical materials she is utilizing to create the works, and the language she uses to describe them.

Emma Balder, Remains 2, 2020. Fabric, paper, wool, yarn, acrylic and thread on canvas and linen, 29 x 38 x 3″. Photography © Jay Marroquin; Artwork © Emma Balder

Pinglets are filled with vibrant bursts of shape and color caught in a balancing act throughout the composition channeling an unlikely yet successful combination of Vasily Kandinsky and Howardena Pindell. The Pinglets look like stuffed animals in the shapes of clouds, human organs, puddles, or the symbols for hills in Aztec Codices. Balder’s work also visually recalls the legacy of Marta Minujín and her stuffed, bright hanging wall pieces that look like Fruit Stripe gum got into a pillow fight. The difference is that Balder’s gum is chewed.

Both Balder’s Pinglet and Fiber Painting abstractions appear to be dancing or blowing in the wind. They are free, and Balder found both freedom and home in the creation of her own combinations and interpretations of media that don’t stick to traditional definitions of painting or sculpture.

Emma Balder, Juggling, 2020. Fibers, graphite, acrylic, and micron on paper, 22 x 30″. Photography © Jay Marroquin; Artwork © Emma Balder

Interestingly, when asked about her main artistic inspiration or influence, Balder, without hesitation, mentioned that she is often thinking about and inspired by Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi. As a Barcelonaphile who has experienced Gaudi’s architecture in person, this resonated with me on multiple levels: bright playful colors, organic forms, structure, and the fact that architecture can be a site where art, home, and nature coalesce. Balder’s works are each like small architectures.

Through our conversation, I learned that Balder intends to generate the abstract feeling of home throughout her oeuvre. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind revealing the source of the importance of home in her work. She mentioned she moved around a few times as a child, and what she always missed most and returned to in her mind was her favorite place: the natural environment that surrounded her first house, where she would play amidst a cluster of trees, have secret meetings with friends or siblings, and carve into or decorate the tree trunks. She felt at home in nature, in these trees, more than the house itself. If you look at Balder’s Pinglets, they are formally reminiscent of horizontal slices of tree trunks.

Emma Balder, Remains 3, 2021. Recycled fabric, wool yarn, graphite, embroidery, ink, acrylic and thread on canvas, recycled fiberfill and foam filling, 30 x 42 x 3″. © Emma Balder

Balder’s commitment to the environment has also attracted the attention of large brands. She was selected in 2019 by PepsiCo as one of the three environmentally-focused artists chosen to have their artwork featured on the series of 100% recycled plastic LIFEWTR water bottles. Sweeping visuals of Balder’s Fiber Paintings can still be found on the bottles today. The series marked a moment of transition for LIFEWTR to go from using regular plastic bottles to recycled ones. While it is still not good for the environment to have single-use plastics in circulation, the massive shift of a company like Pepsi to transition their bottles from new to recycled materials is a step in the right direction. Last week I serendipitously came across Balder’s LIFEWTR bottle at JFK Airport en route to Miami, and was thrilled to have the chance to take in the visual of it with in-depth insight into Balder’s practice, rather that looking at it as an image on a product without context.

LIFEWTR Series 9.3 “The Art of Recycling”, Emma Balder, Image courtesy of the artist.

Looking ahead as Balder continues to develop her practice, she desires to focus even more intently on creating space, and inviting viewers in. “I don’t know how much longer the wall is going to serve me. I have been playing around with sculpture, and I would really like to create an immersive space where the viewer can feel like they are part of that world, and feel that sense of coming home,” she revealed. I look forward to seeing the worlds Balder has in store.

Emma Balder, Watching the World Turn, 2021. Recycled fabric, webbing, wool yarn, paracord, thread, hand embroidery, acrylic on canvas, recycled foam filling, 78 x 60 x 3”. © Emma Balder

Merry Polish Christmas: The Tenth Anniversary of Olek’s “Project B (Wall Street Bull)”, 2010

Above image: Olek installing Project B in 2010. Image courtesy of Olek on Vimeo.

By Alexandra Goldman

If you never saw it in person, you’ve probably seen an image of Project B at least once. The original guerrilla art installation was only up for a few hours before it was taken down by the city, but its viral visuals live forever online. For the ten-year anniversary of Project B this Christmas, I’ve decided to take a closer look at the project and the person who created it, the Polish artist Olek, née Agata Oleksiak, (b. 1978, Staszow, Poland). I’ve found it is a story about ritual, iconoclasm, and two different New York-based immigrant artists who wanted to see the United States doing well. It’s also strongly connected to Olek’s Polish roots.

Charging Bull has become a known site of protest on its own in New York and the subject of several acts of iconoclasm, especially since the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement. It has had paint doused on it in 2017, and had dye poured on it, and its head bashed with a spiked banjo in 2019, for causes ranging from anti-financial corruption, to protecting the environment, to anti-Trump demonstrations. Because of this, there is a current conversation about relocating it. Olek’s wrapping of the bull with yarn has been the most peaceful form of altering the statue while still having a big impact. It is similar to how the artist Dustin Klein created a light projection of a portrait of Breonna Taylor to project onto the controversial statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond in July 2020 as part of the BLM movement. Both yarn and light can be used as peaceful strategies for acts of iconoclasm on monuments.

Olek installing Project B in 2010. Image courtesy of Olek on Vimeo.

For background, in 1989, Italian immigrant sculptor Arturo Di Modica (b. Sicily, 1941) originally installed Charging Bull on Wall Street at Christmas time. He had a studio on Crosby street, and without city permission he and a group of friends delivered by truck the self-funded sculpture in front of the New York Stock Exchange. He intended the sculpture of the known market symbol as a “Christmas gift” to the city symbolizing “the strength and power of the American people”, two years after the October 19, 1987 stock market crash known as “Black Monday” (the worst crash since 1929). Within hours, Charging Bull was removed by the city and taken to a warehouse for storage, before it was later legally relocated to Bowling Green.

Twenty-one years later, at around 2:00 am on Christmas Day 2010, without city permission, Olek wrapped Di Modica’s sixteen-foot, 3.5-ton, bronze Charging Bull with bright pink (with hints of purple, teal and gray), camouflage-pattern, hand-crocheted yarn that they created without assistance. Olek titled the guerrilla intervention Project B or Project B (Wall Street Bull), which is actually absent from the majority of articles about the project.

Replicating Di Modica’s timing, two years after the severe 2008 market crash and also at Christmas time, Olek revived Di Modica’s original guerrilla intervention through Project B by wrapping Charging Bull with their camouflage crocheted yarn. Similar to Di Modica, Olek considered Project B their “Christmas gift” to the city or a “Christmas sweater” for the bull, in effort to uplift the country following the most recent financial crisis. According to the artist, Project B was a symbolic public gift for all those who couldn’t afford holiday presents that year or were unable to visit their families. Olek’s strategic reenactment of Di Modica’s timing (both after the financial crash and time of year), guerrilla-style action, and gift-intention categorize Project B an act of ritual. Olek later confirmed that it was a ritual, and prior to wrapping Charging Bull with yarn, they carried out a series of Polish Christmas rituals: “Christmas eve is a special day for Polish hearts. That night, animals speak human voice. I cooked a traditional dinner, and went to pasterka (midnight mass),” they explained.

The idea of revitalizing statues through ritualistic actions such as wrapping them with colored cloth is not new. It even dates back to Ancient Egypt, during which kings and priests would drape colored cloths around statues of deities during their daily offering ritual ceremonies to the gods to revive their ka, or, inner spirit. In Ancient Egypt, the colors of the cloths during the daily ritual had specific meanings for the ceremony to either refresh the deity (green cloth) or reaffirm its holiness (red cloth).

Olek’s use of the color pink for ritual cloth statue wrapping, when combined with the historically feminine medium of crochet, has given cause for some to consider Project B a political, iconoclastic act by the artist amidst Wall Street’s hyper-masculine environment. While noting Olek prefers to avoid the limitations of categorizing their art as “yarn bombing”, yarn bombing (street art involving yarn), is historically rooted in third-wave feminism during which domestic arts were celebrated. Project B is therefore on one hand, Olek’s public critique of the imbalance of the hyper-masculine environment of Wall Street and the failures of power imbalance.

However, rather than pitting the genders at war with one another through Project B, Olek was expressing maternal caretaking, the need for balance, the importance of self-love, and love of others. Olek, an immigrant from a formerly communist country, felt the need to symbolically take care of a failing capitalist system and lift it back up. Olek created a Yin-Yang duality whereas before there was only Yang energy.

Olek also believes all art is a self-portrait. Through spiritual exploration, Olek identified in recent years as gender nonbinary and considers themself to be a “two-spirit being”, fully male and fully female simultaneously. Wrapping the masculine, muscular, bronze bull with the feminine, soft, pink, crochet resulted in the temporary creation of a powerful, mirroring, two-spirit being in the public space of NYC’s Financial District.

Olek hugging Project B. Image courtesy of Olek on Vimeo.

Furthermore when I first met Olek at Art Basel Miami Beach last year, I became interested in their work because it immediately felt very Polish to me, and I was interested in the fact that none of the articles I was reading about Olek’s work spoke about how Polish it was. I have Polish heritage, and traveled to Poland in 2009.

I was driving from Czestochowa to Krakow in 2009, and noticed all the buildings were Brutalist gray rectangles or squares. However, every so often some stretches of buildings, that seemed to be apartment complexes, were painted over with wide, vertically striped swathes of rainbow colors. I asked my Polish friend why some of the buildings were painted over like this. She replied that after communism fell some cities and towns celebrated by painting buildings bright colors since the government didn’t allow any deviation from uniformity during communism. Similarly, Olek’s art intervention tactic of using a bright burst of color in homogenous gray public space with Project B represents their Polish way of expressing freedom from oppression.

The idea of combining the media of fiber art and sculpture also has roots in Poland. The artist Magdalena Abakanowicz (b. 1930) is a famous Polish sculptor who works with fibrous materials. According to the MoMA, “Abakanowicz and many artists of the Eastern Bloc were drawn to craft and textile traditions as expressive mediums less regulated by Soviet censorship.” When Olek first came to the U.S. with no money in 2000, their sculpture professor at La Guardia Community College also encouraged them to begin sculpting using any material, including yarn.

In our recent Zoom interview, Olek explained that while growing up in communist Poland, being an artist – or expressing individuality of any kind – was highly discouraged, and art galleries and museums were reserved for the elite. Olek believes they never could have fully become who they are as an artist, or individual, if they had stayed in Poland and not made the courageous decision to emigrate to New York. While Olek critiqued the failing power imbalance that Charging Bull came to represent with Project B, Project B was also Olek’s renewal of Di Modica’s celebration of possibilities and resilience available in a capitalist country, presented by an immigrant artist who couldn’t have had their career without its benefits. Their own experience of feeling excluded from art institutions while growing up poor in Poland led to their dedication to public art that can be accessed by anyone.

MOTHER/EARTH: Alexandra Goldman Interviews Activist Performance Artist Maria Evelia Marmolejo

Above: Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 1, 1981. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Fabio Arango.

This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.

By Alexandra Goldman

During weekdays Maria Evelia Marmolejo is a therapist at a child psychotherapy clinic living in Jackson Heights. She’s also a mom, and a skilled salsa dancer. When I met up with her for our interview at a cafe in her neighborhood in December 2018, I felt like she was my fun aunt. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year, but immediately reconnected. I thought, what most people at this cafe probably don’t know, is that she is one of the most badass performance artists from the ’70s and ’80s! She was giving birth in a gallery before it was cool.

Installation view: Subverting the Feminine: Latin American (Re)marks on the Female Body curated by Isabella Villanueva at Y Gallery, 2016. Photo by Alexandra Goldman.

I first met Maria Evelia when I was a Director at Y Gallery and we hosted a historical group exhibition featuring her work, curated by Isabella Villanueva and titled, Subverting the Feminine: Latin American (Re)marks on the Female Body. The show included era-marking performances, video, drawings and photography such as “Integrations in Water” by Yeni y Nan (Jennifer Hackshaw and María Luisa González), “Madre por un día” by Polvo de Gallina Negra (one of the most famous projects by the duo comprising Maris Bustamante and Monica Mayer), “Hymenoplasty” by Regina José Galindo, which won the Golden Lion award at the 2005 Venice Biennial, video and drawings by Peruvian artist Elena Tejada-Herrera, and the video “Incision” by Teresa Margolles. The caliber of historical works in that exhibition was so high; it was like a museum, yet were in a small fifth-floor lower east side gallery space. The show was in November of 2016 and I still frequently think about it to this day.

Marmolejo’s works in Subverting the Feminine were “11 de Marzo” and “Anónimo 4,” both from 1982. These two works respectively spoke to abolishing the idea of menstruation as a taboo, and the tragedy of high infant mortality in several Latin American countries.

“11 de Marzo” debuted at Galería San Diego in Bogota. For this ritual Marmolejo lined the gallery floor with an L-shaped formation of white paper. The space was lit with a blacklight, and the sound of toilet flushing played on loop in the background. She then covered her body with feminine hygiene pads, and performed a dance along the L shaped paper, using her menstrual blood to mark the floor and walls. Marmolejo states, “In this performance I emphasize the pivotal role of womanhood in the origin of life and of her civil rights in the world.”

Maria Evelia Marmolejo, 11 de Marzo, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Camilo Gómez.

Maria Evelia Marmolejo, 11 de Marzo, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.

In “Anónimo 4,” Marmolejo drew attention to the fact that when babies enter into the world, the possibility of survival and peace is not always a certainty. For this, she dug a 1.5 meter triangular pit in the ground, about equal to her height, and three smaller triangular pits around it filled with sewer water. She wrapped her entire body with plastic wrap, and entered the hole, which she filled with the placentas of all the babies born that day in hospitals near the site of the performance: Cali, Colombia and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She covered herself with the placentas, and stayed submerged in the hole, in her words, “embarking on a psychological and sociological self-exploration of the fear of being born in a society in which there is no guarantee of survival.” The experience invoked her own extreme bodily reactions such as vomiting and crying.

Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 4, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.

Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 4, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.

Other works by Marmolejo speak to government violence, disappeared persons, and healing Mother Earth from human-inflicted pollution and damage – especially by symbolically giving back to Earth with the body in the style of nonviolent sacrifice.

In her performance Anónimo 3, Marmolejo went to the banks of the River Cauca in Colombia, which was being severely polluted. At this site she performed a 15-minute ritual in which she formed a 10-meter spiral using limestone dust, centered around a toilet bowl. She used a vaginal wash over the bowl, adhered surgical tape to her body, and walked around spiral allowing her organic fluids and body hair ripped out with the tape to fall into the earth. Through this process she created a compost as an act of healing and forgiveness offered to the planet.

Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 3, 1982. image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.

Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 3, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.

Marmolejo is a recipient of the CIFO Achievement Award, and multiple examples of her work were included in the esteemed 2017-2018 traveling exhibition, Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960-1985, which was presented at the Hammer Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Pinacoteca de São Paolo. Below I am pleased to present an exclusive video interview with the artist:

EPILOGUE:

Now is a compelling time to revisit Marmolejo’s work, which often focuses on the fusion of the human body with the health of the planet Earth. The body and Earth are one. The power of the body, especially the feminine body, as a regenerative force, and as a power to protect Mother Earth, another feminine life giving force – our planet – that gives us the chance to exist.

In this time of Coronavirus wreaking havoc on the collective human body worldwide, there are murmurs of the virus as the planet’s retaliation against us for destroying it. Maybe not scientifically, but symbolically or spiritually.

Art and Style: A Photo Essay

By Rose Hartman

For over four decades, I have visited New York’s annual art fairs — from ADAA to The Armory Show — along with many other fairs that showcase galleries’ best and most innovative artists. Artworks look even more exciting when contrasted with the stylish women of all ages (from gallerists, to collectors, to fashionistas who fill the piers, the Armory, lofts, and exhibition spaces) wearing distinctive attire that blends into colors and patterns displayed on the walls.

Artwork: Vanessa German at Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, ADAA 2020

The Armory Show 2020

Artwork: Luisa Rabbia at Peter Blum Gallery, The Armory Show 2020

Artwork: Jiro Takamatsu at Whitestone Gallery, The Armory Show 2020

Artwork: Timothy Curtis at Benda Gallery, The Armory Show 2020

Artwork: Viktor Popovic at C24 Gallery, The Armory Show 2020

Artwork: Amy Schissel at Patrick Michail Gallery, The Armory Show 2020

ADAA 2020

ADAA 2020

Artwork: Nina Chanel Abney at Pace Prints, ADAA 2020

Artwork: Vanessa German at Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, ADAA 2020

For the past four decades, Rose Hartman has photographed the rich, the famous and the stylish in some of the most legendary settings of New York nightlife, from Studio 54 to the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute Gala, fashion shows, and models backstage. Her arresting pictures have been published in countless international publications, including Vogue, Stern, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Panorama, the NY Times, New York, & Art & Auction. Hartman’s photos have been exhibited in international galleries from Beijing to Moscow. Her iconic photos are currently on view at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo and at The Brooklyn Museum in a group exhibition titled, “Studio 54: Night Magic,” open from March 13—July 5, 2020.