Interdisciplinary Art & Theory Program: Gnaw
Natalie Frate, Alexandra Iglesia, Iris Ward Loughran, Katy Pinke, Alicia Riccio, Emma Safir, Sydney Shavers, and Ambika Trasi
February 26th – March 10th, 2022
Artworks
Installation Views
coming soon…
Press Release
Heroes Gallery, in partnership with The Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, is pleased to present a group exhibition of works by participants of the 2021-2022 program, whose weekly seminars have been organized this year around the theme of “Differencing Art.”
We live, Achille Mbembe writes, “in the era of the Earth,” a time when we must learn to share the whole planet as a common destiny. This demands a shift in our languages, both verbal and visual: “We will effectively require a language that constantly bores, perforates, and digs like a gimlet, that knows how to become a projectile, a sort of full absolute, of will that ceaselessly gnaws at the real.” Mbembe’s call for a language in the face of planetary peril that aims at sustained and careful penetration of the impenetrable, the locked, and the fiercely guarded can be helpful in understanding the practices of artists who use visual language to chip away at fixed ideas, hegemonic structures, and standard procedures.
Gnaw brings together eight artists whose works propose new dialects for these ongoing re-negotiations, utilizing sculpture, painting, film, photography, printmaking, and installation. Exhibited works employ strategies of opacity and transparency, chance, biography, scavenging, and decay to playfully and subversively chew, nibble, chomp, and macerate the locks of the real.
Mbembe asks us to gnaw at what exists not just to tear down what is, but also to build together to “re-create the world.” Working through the fissures of what exists, these artists invite us to contemplate the possibilities of what yet may be.
About the Artists:
Natalie Frate is an interdisciplinary practitioner whose work looks at the intersections of art, literature, and material culture. Originally from Cleveland, OH, she has a BS in Sociology and Anthropology from Rochester Institute of Technology; an MA in Comparative Literature from SOAS, University of London; is a former fellow at the Academy of Korean Studies; and is currently working on an MA in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at New York University.
Alexandra Iglesia is an artist who uses film, photography, and writing to reveal the contradictions and links between inherited trauma and loss to structures of gender, race, and migration. Their work pulls apart essentialist and reductive thinking to invoke questions that connect contemporary visual culture to larger historical narratives. Using a process of finding, making, and recreating images, the work functions as testimony. Iglesia graduated in 2021 with a BA from Haverford College.
Iris Ward Loughran is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Inspired by science fiction, non-binaryism, land art, and fluxus, their work often takes the form of a public installation or action. She has shown at Wild Project; Zimmerli Art Museum; Williamsburg Art & Historical Center; and LeRoy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University. They hold a BA in Urban Studies and Planning from University of California San Diego and an MFA in Visual arts from Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University with full tuition scholarship.
Katy Pinke is an artist and actor based in New York, NY. She has shown with Echo Arts Initiative, New York NY; Pablo’s Birthday Gallery, New York NY; and ABC No Rio, New York NY; premiered original performance work at Tate Xchange at Tate Modern, London; Tsinghua University, Beijing; Dixon Place, New York; and Summerhall at Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh; participated in performance pieces at the Royal Academy of Arts, London; ARCO, Madrid; and Frieze, London; and performed in films shot at EMPAC RPI, New York and screened at Moscow MOMA and Frieze, London. Pinke holds a BA from Princeton University in China Studies and Translation, and an MFA from Rose Bruford College (London) in acting. Website: www.katy-pinke.com | @__katypinke
Alicia Riccio is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Their work draws from diarisitic, cultural, and historical sources to explore the fluid and fragile nature of what makes up our individual character and collective selves. Their interdisciplinary practice spans time-based media, sculpture, text and image formats in order to explore sociopolitical issues that intersect with their own biography, such as queer representation, illness, loss, and the resiliency and evolution of one’s identity. Recent exhibitions include Estudio Marte 221, Mexico City; Rinomina, Paris; Galería Agustina Ferreyra LLC, San Juan PR; Bargain Spot, Edinburgh; and New Art Center, Newton MA. They received a BFA from SMFA at Tufts University. Website: www.aliciariccio.com
Emma Safir is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She employs material exploration and manipulation of fabric through weaving techniques, smocking, lens-based media, rasterization, upholstery, among other methods. Her work functions as screen simulations, proxies and portals. Safir is interested in hierarchies of labor, especially in their relationship to gender and digitization. She has exhibited recently at Baxter St at CCNY, Manhattan NY; SHIN HAUS at Shin Gallery, Manhattan NY; Lyles & King, Manhattan NY; Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia PA; and TW Fine Art, Brooklyn NY. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Textiles Art Center in Brooklyn NY. Safir holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Printmaking and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in Painting & Printmaking. Website: www.emmasafir.com | @grem.jpg
Sydney Shavers is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work appraises preconceived notions & concepts of value. She utilizes deceptive camouflage to infiltrate systems both digital & ‘IRL’, and expose the ways humans construct understanding, mediate perception, and prescribe limits. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including We Were Already Gone at Hauser & Wirth, Chelsea NY; un/mute at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Manhattan NY; A Gathering at The Catskills in Tribeca, Manhattan NY; and Pieces of Me at Transfer Gallery & left.gallery [online]. Shavers has participated in residencies & projects including UN/MUTE 10002 with the European Union National Institutes for Culture & Undercurrent Gallery; ACRE; and HATCH projects at Chicago Artists Coalition. She holds a BFA from University of Illinois at Chicago & an MFA from Hunter College. Website: www.sydneyshavers.net l @sydney_shavers
Ambika Trasi is an artist, writer, and curator based in Brooklyn, NY. Her multidisciplinary, research-based practice considers the coloniality of power within images and sites. Recent curatorial projects include Salman Toor: How Will I Know, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2020) and A Space for Monsters, Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia (2021). Trasi’s professional experience spans a range of spaces in the field: from collaborative platforms, to feminist art collectives, to museums. Previously, she was the managing director and curatorial assistant at Asia Contemporary Art Week (2013-2017) and a board member and exhibition manager with the South Asian Womxn’s Creative Collective (2015-2019). She organized numerous performances, public programs, and exhibitions across New York City venues through these roles. Her writing has been published by the Whitney Museum of American Art, IBRAAZ Journal for Contemporary Visual Culture in North Africa and the Middle East, and Arcade Project Zine. Website: www.ambikatrasi.com
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The Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program is designed to facilitate the examination of both dominant and under-recognized epistemological frameworks that inform the system of art, including its production, consumption, distribution, and exhibition. Grounded in the global tradition of critical theory, the Program is focused on questioning discursive frameworks through which notions of culture and politics are conceptualized. It is intended for practitioners across all fields related to the Fine Arts, including artists, critics, curators, and others. The Program has been conceived to help art-makers to deepen and develop their understanding of the art institution, as well as its place in confronting the violences and inequalities of the present. Every year, the program will be structured around a general theme or concept, which will be studied in more specific terms through readings and seminars hosted by seminar leaders and visiting faculty. Ten students will be selected to participate in the program each year. For more information: https://www.artandtheoryprogram.org/, Email: info@artandtheoryprogram.org