A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
A Través, Installation View, James Cohan, 52 Walker St, January 14 - February 22, 2022
BILL VIOLA
Small Saints, 2008
Color High-Definition video polyptych on six OLED flat panels mounted on shelf
13 x 62 x 11 in.
33.02 x 157.48 x 27.94 cm
Edition of 7 plus 2 artist's proofs (AP 2/2)
JCG3784.AP2
JESSE WINE
Love and other strangers, 2021
Ceramic, paint, sand, graphite powder, steel
77 x 68 x 30 in.
195.6 x 172.7 x 76.2 cm
JCG13123
Courtesy of the Artist and Simone Subal Gallery, New York
SIMON EVANS ™
The Land that Time Reshot, 2021
Mixed media
30 x 40 in.
76.2 x 101.6 cm
JCG13053
SIMON EVANS ™
The Land that Time Reshot, 2021
Detail
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Darkroom Mirror (_2160168), 2018
Archival pigment print
32 x 24 in. (81.28 x 60.96 cm)
print size
33 x 25 x 2 in. (83.82 x 63.5 x 5.08 cm) framed
Edition 1 of 5, 2 AP
JCG12879
Courtesy of the Artist and Vielmetter, Los Angeles
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Drop Scene Study (0X5A1121), 2018
Archival pigment print
75 x 50 in. (190.5 x 127 cm) print size
76 x 51 x 2 in. (193.04 x 129.54 x 5.08 cm) framed
Edition 1 of 5, 2 AP
JCG12880
Courtesy of the Artist and Vielmetter, Los Angeles
BRANDON NDIFE
Evolution of a Corn Chip, 2021
Aquaresin, wood, insulation foam, corn, silver leaf, enamel,
latex
34 × 22 × 32 in.
86.36 × 55.88 × 81.28 cm
JCG13120
Courtesy of the Artist and Bureau, New York
BRANDON NDIFE
Evolution of a Corn Chip, 2021
Detail
TERESA MARGOLLES
A TRAVÉS, 2007 - 2022
Action that took place on the windows of 52 Walker St. on January 9, 2022.
Realized by a young migrant from Guatemala, who covered the panes with residual sweat left on the t-shirts of undocumented migrants from Mexico, Central America, and South America who live and work in New York. The garments were obtained by exchange carried out across the city’s five boroughs.
Dimensions variable
JCG13181
TERESA MARGOLLES
Nudo Rojo (Red Knot), 2022
Wool, linen and cotton
35 3/8 x 27 1/2 in.
90 x 70 cm
JCG13233
WARDELL MILAN
Amerika: Klansman, Robert, 2019
Charcoal, graphite, colored pencil, pastel, and oil stick on hand dyed paper
49 3/4 x 37 7/8 in. (126.4 x 96.2 cm)
framed: 54 x 42 1/4 in. (137.2 x 107.3 cm)
JCG13208
Courtesy of the Artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York
Wardell Milan
Amerika: Klansman, Pulaski, 2019
Charcoal, graphite, colored pencil, pastel, and oil stick on hand dyed paper
49 3/4 x 37 7/8 in (126.4 x 96.2 cm)
framed: 54 x 42 1/4 in (137.2 x 107.3 cm)
JCG13189
Courtesy of the Artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York
TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN
Radiant Remembrance, 2021
Concrete, bamboo, brass, steel, epoxy resin
32 x 31 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.
81.5 x 80 x 80 cm
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofs (AP 1/2)
JCG12827
TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN
Radiant Remembrance, 2021
Detail
TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN
Spirit of Bidong, 2020
pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper
48 x 32 in
121.9 x 81.3 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs (#2/5)
JCG11690
YUN-FEI JI
The hooded skeleton on a goat, 2021
Ink and watercolor on paper
23 1/4 x 16 3/8 in.
59.1 x 41.6 cm
JCG12389
YUN-FEI JI
The protesters, 2021
Ink and watercolor on paper
27 1/2 x 17 3/8 in.
69.8 x 44.1 cm
JCG12390
YUN-FEI JI
The three hooded men, 2021
Ink and watercolor on paper
18 1/2 x 19 1/4 in.
47 x 48.9 cm
JCG12388
KATHLEEN RYAN
Bad Grapes (Desert Island), 2021
Agate, turquoise, amazonite, tektite, aquamarine, magnesite, jasper, garnet, Ching Hai jade, onyx, serpentine, glass, steel pins on coated polystyrene, copper tube and copper fittings
38½ x 35¾ x 28½ in.
97.8 x 90.8 x 72.4 cm
JCG13121
Courtesy of the Artist and KARMA, New York
KATHLEEN RYAN
Bad Grapes (Desert Island), 2021
Detail
JESSE MOCKRIN
The Magic Chamber, 2021
Oil on cotton
Diptych
Overall: 40 x 84 in.
101.6 x 213.4 cm
JCG13119
Courtesy of the Artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles
JESSE MOCKRIN
The Magic Chamber, 2021
Detail
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (142), c.2007-2012
Wood fired ceramic
7 5/8 x 7 1/8 x 11 1/8 in.
19.5 x 18 x 28 cm
JCG13126
Courtesy of the Artist and Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, UK
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (142), c.2007-2012
Detail
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (148), c.2007-2012
Wood fired ceramic
5 7/8 x 5 1/2 x 14 5/8 in.
15 x 14 x 37 cm
JCG13127
Courtesy of the Artist and Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, UK
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (148), c.2007-2012
Detail
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (150), 2014
Wood fired ceramic
7 7/8 x 7 7/8 x 6 3/4 in.
20 x 20 x 17 cm
JCG13129
Courtesy of the Artist and Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, UK
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (150), 2014
Wood fired ceramic
7 7/8 x 7 7/8 x 6 3/4 in.
20 x 20 x 17 cm
JCG13129
Courtesy of the Artist and Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, UK
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (149), c.2007-2012
Wood fired ceramic
8 1/4 x 7 7/8 x 13 3/8 in.
21 x 20 x 34 cm
JCG13128
Courtesy of the Artist and Jennifer Lauren Gallery, Manchester, UK
SHINICHI SAWADA
Untitled (149), c.2007-2012
Detail
WANGECHI MUTU
All rosey, 2003
ink, acrylic, sequins, glitter and printed paper collage on mylar
42 x 30 in.
106.7 x 76.2 cm
JCG12124
WANGECHI MUTU
All rosey, 2003
Detail
JES FAN
Diagram XVIII, 2022
Aqua resin, glass and pigment
34 x 27 x 10 in.
86.4 x 68.6 x 25.4 cm
JCG13117
Courtesy of the Artist and Empty Gallery, Hong Kong
JES FAN
Diagram XVIII, 2022
Detail
BILL VIOLA
Passage into Night, 2005
Color high-definition video projection on flat panel display mounted on wall
50:14 minutes
121 x 72 x 12 cm
47 5/8 x 28 3/8 x 4 3/4 in.
Edition of 7 plus 2 artist's proofs (#7/7)
JCG3288
James Cohan is pleased to present A Través, a group exhibition on view from January 14 through February 19, 2022, at 52 Walker Street. The gallery will host an opening on Friday, January 14 from 10 AM to 6 PM. Masks and proof of vaccination are required for entry.
To explore the exhibition in our Viewing Room, please click here.
Participating Artists:
Simon Evans™
Ellen Gallagher
Yun-Fei Ji
Jes Fan
Teresa Margolles
Wardell Milan
Jesse Mockrin
Wangechi Mutu
Brandon Ndife
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Kathleen Ryan
Shinichi Sawada
Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Bill Viola
Jesse Wine
Collectively and individually, we pass through thresholds, periods of transitions, and states of indeterminacy in life. In the middle stage between birth and death, there is a “cloud of unknowing,” the Romantic idea of a psychic space with no boundaries; at once freeing and equally anxiety-provoking. If ever there was a time when ambiguity and disorientation are shared sensations, it is now. This exhibition is a meditation on this transitory state. Through performance, sculpture, painting, photography and film, the artists presented offer glimpses into these subconscious states as they play out in figuration.
Teresa Margolles’ poignant performance and gallery intervention A TRAVÉS (2007 - 2022), whose title translated means “through,” anchors the exhibition. Margolles investigates the social and aesthetic dimensions of violence and marginality in her work. In this instance, she covers the gallery windows in the sweat of undocumented migrants from Mexico, Central America, and South America, who live and work in New York. To execute this action, t-shirts worn previously by these individuals will be smudged onto the panes of glass, serving as material evidence of their resolute bodily presence. By obscuring the view through the gallery windows, the work aims to address the exclusionary social and economic structures experienced by undocumented communities.
The body is referenced both directly and indirectly throughout the exhibition. Shinichi Sawada, a self-taught ceramicist based in Japan’s Shiga prefecture, creates hauntingly expressive, meditative spiked and thorned bodies. Since 2000, Sawada has attended Nakayoshi Fukushikai, a social welfare organization for individuals with disabilities, where he spends time firing ceramics in a hand-made wooden oven. The objects he creates there hover between chimerical human-animal and spirit-god forms. Jes Fan’s sculptures resist simple classification and often meld the organic and inorganic; where substances such as hormones, bodily fluids, and mold are inserted into materials like glass and resin. At its essence, Fan’s work is about fluidity and otherness, highlighting questions surrounding identity, race, and gender while exploring their intersections with biology. Jesse Wine’s Love and other strangers (2021), examines the generative space above a fictional building; a visual representation of metaphysically leaving the confines of home through the act of dreaming. Wine’s three amorphous, quasi-corporeal forms, set atop a base that consciously evokes terraced housing, explore this otherworldly domain in different directions: one points directly upward, another deviates horizontally, and the third sits into elbow-like knuckles.
Several artists in this exhibition examine the human figure as it moves through and between thresholds and frames. Bill Viola’s Small Saints (2008), explores the threshold of life and death. In each panel, the viewer is presented with a series of encounters where an individual slowly emerges from black-and-white darkness and breaks through the threshold of water and light. As the presence of all beings is finite, the figure eventually turns back from material existence and recedes through the wall of water. The cycle repeats without end. Like Viola, Jesse Mockrin references art historical depictions of divine and saintly bodies, framing and transposing recognizable figures to cast them into a liminal non-space. In her monumental diptych The Magic Chamber (2021), which takes its title from an act of the 1911 musical play Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, passages are appropriated from two of Georges de La Tour’s paintings of Saint Sebastian. The androgynous Sebastian on the left panel gazes at another Sebastian being cared for by Saint Irene on the right panel. The painting captures the body traversing its physical boundaries, transforming into a hybrid site of layered meaning.
In his photographic works, Paul Mpagi Sepuya carefully frames his own body, sometimes alongside companions and collaborators, in the act of taking a photo. Positioning himself with his camera and tripod in front of a mirror or behind a dropcloth, Sepuya obscures and reveals the body at turns, creating compositional arrangements of limbs and photographic apparatus that parallel the medium’s processes. Sepuya creates within the space of his studio elliptical moments of psychically-charged physical space that allude to the multivalent definition of the darkroom as, in his words, “both the historical origin of the photographer’s craft as well as the privileged yet marginalized site of queer and colored sexuality and socialization.”
Each work in A Través aims to suggest an ephemeral stage of transition. This exhibition constitutes a meditative collection of subtle gestures in which the work of art operates as a verb rather than a noun, reflecting on a perpetual state of becoming.