VOLTA NY 2018: The Aesthetics of Matter
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 9, 2018: VOLTANYis pleased to announce the participating artists in The Aesthetics of Matter, the third iteration of the critically acclaimed Curated Section — a thematic exhibition within the fair, organized by an independent curator — occurring at the fair’s eleventh edition in the city and fourth year at PIER 90, fromMarch 7-11, 2018. Mickalene Thomas, a prominent artist and teacher, and Racquel Chevremont, New York-based collector and philanthropist, are co-curating this project as a team, assembling eight artists who explore ideologies of collage as a constructive mode through material, language, text, cultural and personal concepts.
The curators note: “This exhibition will include paintings, sculpture, photography, video, text, and printed matter. The artists’ works are social and political through the form of collage, which has always been thought of as ‘a moment of crisis in consciousness’.”
Exhibiting artists in The Aesthetics of Matter are:Tomashi Jackson / presented by Tilton Gallery (New York); Troy Michie / presented by COMPANY (New York); Devin N. Morris / presented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery (Brooklyn/San Francisco); Christie Neptune / presented by Rubber Factory (New York); Kameelah Janan Rasheed / presented by Project For Empty Space (Newark); David Shrobe / presented by Studio 301 NYC (Brooklyn); Didier William / presented by Anna Zorina Gallery (New York); and Kennedy Yanko / presented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery (Brooklyn/San Francisco).
Images: Troy Michie, Piensa en Mi, 2017, Paper, photography, clothing, and acrylic on masonite panel, 60 x 48 x 2 in. Presented by COMPANY, New York.
Contemplating his recent body of work, Troy Michie notes: “Most recently I have been working on a series that incorporates Roland Penrose’s camouflage theory, Pachuco history in El Paso, TX and a series of attacks in Los Angeles known as the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. The zoot suit is a point of departure; within which notions of class, self-expression, and masculinity unfold. Thinking of the duality of camouflage, I am forming relationships between the implied threat of ‘otherness’ to American nationalism and a form of camouflage known as disruptive patterning.”
Images: Christie Neptune, Flat Surface and 3D (from series Unpacking Sameness), 2018, Photography, vinyl wall adhesive, 30 x 40 in. Presented by Rubber Factory, New York.
Christie Neptune discusses Unpacking Sadness, currently in production ahead of the exhibition: “It is a counter-narrative which aims to critique the social ills of white supremacy, colorblind ideologies, and fragility. In Unpacking Sameness, I use reflective surfaces, curtains and assembled industrial pieces to explore the psycho-social divisions of double consciousness, institutionalized racial difference and spatial thinking, in respect to the framing and positioning of my body and objects in space. Within this piece, I invite my viewers to catechize what is ‘unseen’ behind The Great American Curtain; the ‘most disagreeable mirror’ in James Baldwin’s The White Man’s Guilt.”
Images: Tomashi Jackson, States’ Rights (Brown et al. vs The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas) (Limited Value Exercise), 2017, Mixed media on gauze, 89 x 91 x 45 in. Presented by Tilton Gallery, New York.
Tomashi Jackson comments on her process: “The methodology of the current work focuses on laws and policies that govern the social infrastructural sites of education and transportation (public and private) in the United States for research and visualization. Paintings, prints, photographs, and video works flirt with censorial identification as sculpture and drawing through the use of collage across objects and spaces. All of the work operates through a principle of collage collapsing the past and present in formal compositions of relationships that are linear, color, light sensitive, and material in nature.”
VOLTANY2018 at PIER 90 runs fromMarch 7 – 11, 2018. The venue may be reached by public transportation via the Eighth Avenue line (E or C trains to 50 St), as well as direct shuttle between VOLTANY and Pier 94: The Armory Show. Additionally, PIER 90 is connected by an elevated, covered and heated passageway to Pier 92: The Armory Show.
VOLTA was founded in Basel in 2005 by dealers Kavi Gupta (Chicago), Friedrich Loock (Berlin), and Ulrich Voges (Frankfurt/Main). VOLTA14 in Basel will coincide with Art Basel Week fromJune 13 – 18, 2018.
