Un-Script-It
Un-Script-It
October 23 - November 20, 2022
Opening Reception: October 23, 4-6 pm. RSVP.
Finissage & Open Studios: November 20, 12-6 pm. RSVP.
Curator Tour: November 20, 2pm. RSVP.
Curated by: Vanessa Seis
Artists: David Bowen, Eunsun Choi, Romina Chuls, Sam HEYDT, AnnaMaria Pinaka, Paula R Rodriguez, and Abigail Tankersley
(BROOKLYN, NY) Overcoming fatalism requires high doses of creativity and ingenuity from a wide range of different voices. Un-Script-It, an exhibition curated by Vanessa Seis opening at KUNSTRAUM this October, sets out to inspire change by highlighting seven national and international artists that responded to an open call earlier this year and whose work address contemporary socio, political, and environmental topics through three-dimensional work, textiles, painting, and collage.
In a post-pandemic time marked by domestic and international political conflicts, culture wars, climate disasters, and economic instability, the media is quick to perpetuate that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable—a seemingly scripted and uncontrollable reality.
Yet there are millions of people who rise every day and fight for change and reconciliation on a macro and micro level. So, what drives them to re-write the script? And how do the artists in this exhibition quietly but bluntly re-write it?
Through her large-scale machine-knit stretched painting “Biologists Tend to Look at Death as Means for Life to Regenerate” Tennessee artist Abigail Tankersley visualizes the circular, overwhelming thought of death in a way that is not fearful but rather gracious. Colorful and playful, she places emphasis on the way traumatic and painful experiences can find a transition into something more inspiring and maybe even beautiful, through ways of spirituality and reflection.
Exploring social concerns such as mental health, specifically as it relates to her cultural background and issues of identity, Mexican-born, London-based artist Paula R Rodriguez takes the viewer to a peaceful, decolonized, and deeply rooted place in her work “Stavroz, Some Place Else.” Evoking the magical realism of Latin America, her work pays homage to the richness of its native traditions.
Chroniclers of our time and drivers of change, the artists presented in Un-Script-It were seemingly grappling with and gravitating towards similar themes at similar moments in time. While they approach overlapping topics such as climate change, mental health, and women’s rights, from very different practices and angles, the works in this exhibition all remind us that we are at a point in time where we can rewrite the script, on behalf of society, nature, and ourselves.
David Bowen’s (USA, b. 1975) work is concerned with aesthetics resulting from interactive, reactive and generative processes as they relate to the intersections between natural and mechanical systems. His installation 5twigs consists of five found twigs that were three-dimensionally scanned, printed in translucent plastic, and mounted with the original twig in opposition to its artificial counterpart. Bowen’s work is a collaboration between the natural form, the mechanism, and the artist.
Eunsun Choi (South Korea, b. 1986) is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist whose work seeks to exorcize universal fears and anxieties through humor, imagination, and invention. Her installation, Cuckoo, will consist of multiple cuckoo clocks with a recorded human voice, representing the economic disparity in Korean society, and highlighting the discomfort and anxiety they caused the artist growing up.
Romina Chuls (Peru, b. 1991) is a researcher and interdisciplinary feminist artist working around postcolonial gender issues within Latin America. Her topics are related to androcentric Euro-American memory, and sexual and reproductive transitions. Chuls’ charcoal drawings intervened with alpaca, hemp, cotton, and merino wool thread, thematize the colonization and exploitation of the women’s body.
Sam HEYDT (USA, b. 1986) is a social practice and recycled media artist whose art is anchored in social advocacy and attempts to give a voice to the veiled, forgotten, exiled, and silenced. In her analogue assemblages, HEYDT confronts the disillusionment of our time with the ecological and existential nightmare it creates.
Working across video, live performance, drawing, painting, and writing, AnnaMaria Pinaka’s (Greece, b. 1983) watercolors from the series, Thirsty Pig, explore the physical, human and ‘dirty’. Her work is an invitation to stay with and speak nearby our inconsistencies, whilst creating a safe space for mutual yet personal agonies to exist.
Paula R Rodriguez (Mexico, b. 1989) combines explorations of her native Mexico with social concerns. Weaving narratives that explore the subject matter of mental health, Rodriguez’ whimsical gouache on watercolor paper paintings evoke the magic realism of her cultural background and the richness of its native traditions.
Abigail Tankersley (USA, b. 2000) is a textile artist and designer focusing on machine-knit fine art and installation. Her large-scale piece Biologists Tend to Look at Death as Means for Life to Regenerate visualizes how traumatic and painful experiences can find a transition into something more inspiring and maybe even beautiful.
Un-Script-It will be on view at KUNSTRAUM from October 23rd to November 20th, 2022, by appointment only.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
A Finissage reception and Open Studios event will be held on Sunday, November 20th from 12pm-6pm, with a curator-led tour at 2pm.
Image Credit: Paula R Rodriguez, Stavroz, Some Place Else, 2021, Gouache on Watercolor Paper. Image courtesy of the artist.
Review by CREATE
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KUNSTRAUM's programs are supported, in part, by Art in General and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.