Month: March 2019 | Femme Art Review

Dana Buzzee: The Coven on Her Back

Punishment Rituals

LEFT Contemporary March 1-May 4, 2019

By Lucas Cabral

I walk in and I get a little excited. This excitement has been growing with every image the artist and LEFT Contemporary have posted of works and installation progress leading up to the opening. The imagery and energy are something I’ve been looking for (and missing) since I moved from my Toronto-adjacent hometown whose proximity to Toronto’s queer density granted me easy access to bondage and fetish communities and their meeting spaces. Is this excitement the effect of the spell cast by Buzzee’s work? Or is it evidence of my newfound curse?

Why not both?

The constellation of works making up Punishment Rituals forms a warm entanglement of community and queerdos spanning generations and geographies. Buzzee has inducted viewers, makers, participants, and their predecessors, materializing them in studded leather collars and cuffs, a wide-cast web woven of leather and chain, and prints retelling possible engagements of these or similar sculptural works, all of which in this space cast a circle around an a-frame and knot of nylon rope.

005_PunishmentRituals_DanaBuzzee_LEFTContemporary — *Punishment Rituals,* installation view. Dana Buzzee. 2019. Size varies. Courtesy of the artist and LEFT Contemporary.

Hand-pulled images of rope and leather-bound performers on newsprint reference and resurrect community-based erotica like that found in publications like On Our Backs, the first women-run erotica magazine that featured lesbian erotica for a lesbian audience. Images are captured when Buzzee opens calls for community members to perform freely with the leather works she makes. Groups, pairs, and strangers, bond over a shared bondage experience. Buzzee captures these moments of liberation, exploration, and connection, offering the images as a part of an incantation. Like with the previously mentioned On Our Backs publication, Buzzee continues a legacy of by-and-for community erotica. An exhibition poster with exhibition text by Taylor Harder has a likeness modeled after On Our Backs and chronicles the development of and differences between British and North American traditions, making note of the ways that intimacy is an activator during initiation.

Punishment Rituals, installation view. Dana Buzzee. 2019. Size varies. Courtesy of the artist and LEFT Contemporary.

The exhibition reclaims the formula of ritual witchcraft initiation ceremonies, making space for homoeroticism which is rejected by British traditions (heavily informed by the legalization of witchcraft preceding the legalization of homosexuality in Britain), and taking up traditional initiation elements like blindfolds, nudity, bondage, and whipping not adopted by North American traditions.[1] In Punishment Rituals, artwork takes the spot of coven members who typically circle the initiator and postulant during the ceremony. These stand-ins are embedded with the energy of those who have been a part of their making. Buzzee engages community members who are also artists, writers, printmakers, leatherworkers, arts administrators and peers in their production. With the intention of initiation being “spiritual rebirth into new identities and new communities,” Buzzee sets the stage for those possibilities to be impacted by queer-femme homoeroticism.

001_PunishmentRituals_DanaBuzzee_LEFTContemporary — *Punishment Rituals,* installation view. Dana Buzzee. 2019. 9′ by 9′. Courtesy of the artist and LEFT Contemporary.

The show, the space, and it’s making reflect the collective queer mobilization that’s taken up out of necessity to meet the needs of one’s community that aren’t satisfied or even acknowledged by the heteronormative structures that dominate our spaces. As we pay more attention to the disappearance and lack of queer spaces especially for femmes (even in bigger cities), it is important to celebrate the perseverance of those who dedicate their time and energy into producing space and opportunity for their community to gather and engage. In connecting community members with the knowledge, perseverance, and legacy of those before to produce the various elements of the show, Punishment Rituals penetrates communities past and present and binds them together through webs of leather, chain, intimacy, and possibility, creating an opportunity to find community and affirmation, and to reflect on the ongoing task of collective queer organizing and reclaiming.

[1] Harder, Taylor, Art Thou Willing to Suffer to Learn: An Analysis of Witchcraft Initiation Rituals, 2019.

Re-imagining the South Asian Curator

1 (1) — Natasha Ginwala and Defne Ayas were selected to curate the Gwangju Biennale in September 2020.

By Devana Senanayake

“I am not entirely comfortable being bracketed as “a South Asian Curator,” says curator and writer, Natasha Ginwala. “Maybe this fluidity which I have structured my life around is one way to break out of these codes which are opportunities, but they are also ways of defining you.”

There are limited curators of colour working in the cultural field. Natasha feels these specialized positions are a welcome development, yet at times situate curators in prefixed categories rather than provide them an opportunity to reshape and push the boundaries of their occupation. In 2015, the Mellon Foundation released the first comprehensive survey of diversity in American Art Museums. It cited only 16% of leadership positions held by people of colour. Of these positions: 38% of Americans identified as Asian, Black, Hispanic or multiracial. There are limited curators of colour, much less South Asian curators, in Europe and America.

TASTE KARATHTHE 3 — Firi Rahman, *Taste Karanthethé* (2019). Performance. Colomboscope 2019: *Sea Change*, Colombo (25–31 January 2019). Photography by Ruvin de Silva.

“The whitest job in the entire cultural community in New York is curator,” Tom Finkelpearl, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs told the New York Times last year. “That’s changing.”

In response to criticisms of limited diversity, large scale museums have created full-time positions to bring in more diverse curators. In 2015, the MET created a position for an “Assistant Curator of South Asia” and appointed Shanay Jhaveri to it. The TATE appointed Priyesh Mistry to the “Assistant Curator of Research for South Asia” position. Last year, the Peabody Essex Museum appointed Siddhartha V. Shah as “Curator of Indian and South Asian Art.”

Photography by Ruvin de Silva

“I see these positions from a distance, and I wonder what it does to you because you are still slotted as “The” South Asian Curator. I am feeling more at ease because it’s my relationship with the artists I work with, my thinking, and my writing which defines how I am seen in my field,” she says of her journey as an independent curator, an alternative to the traditional role as a full-time curator in a museum.

Curatorial roles based solely on location oversee the cultural richness, diversity, and complexity of the region. Generalized names such as “South Asia” fail to capture the multiracial, multiethnic and multilingual identities that inhabit those regions. As an area, South Asia is large. It includes India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives just to cite a limited number of countries. None of these elements are taken into consideration by the generalized South Asian Curator labels.

Henry Tan & Partners, Merchants of Merchants (2019). Performance. Colomboscope 2019: Sea Change, Colombo (25–31 January 2019). Photography by Ruvin de Silva

Henry Tan & Partners, Merchants of Merchants (2019). Performance. Colomboscope 2019: Sea Change, Colombo (25–31 January 2019).Colomboscope. Photography by Ruvin de Silva

Natasha studied at Jharwala Nehru University’s School of Art and Aesthetics in Delhi. She then pursued a specialized curatorial course in De Appel Arts Center in 2010. At that time, she had been the only South Asian participant in the course. As a student in India, she found a lot of “hierarchies” in local art circles, so she found her experience in the Netherlands, despite being an inexperienced curator, to be a liberating and educational one.

After the conclusion of her studies, Natasha stayed in Europe to pursue the role of an independent curator a decision that ultimately helped her host several biennales such as the Contour Biennale 8 Polyphonic Worlds: Justice as Medium and Documenta 14 (2017). Her projects have also been featured at the 56^th Venice Biennale and KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

SISSEL TOLAAS 2 — Smellarchive children’s workshop by Sissel Tolaas. Colomboscope 2019. Photography by Ruvin De Silva.

As India’s economy has risen, Indian art has enjoyed greater levels of local and international popularity. Iftikhar Dadi, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, commented on this phenomenon on the Guggenheim blog:

“A new generation of curators has emerged in India, and curating is now considered a serious and competitive profession. India also overshadows other South Asian countries in its international exposure, its artists and curators having recently enjoyed more opportunities to exhibit both domestically and internationally….

Other countries [in the region] are also developing analogous infrastructures including museums, galleries, journals, training programs, and periodic exhibition platforms such as biennials.”

FORT TRAILS 1 — *Colomboscope 2019: Sea Change, Colombo (25–31 January 2019).* Photography by Ruvin Da Silva.

It is only natural that Natasha stayed connected to her South Asian roots as it is an area hungry for exposure, strong management, and reinterpretation. She is currently based, simultaneously, in Berlin and Colombo.

“I think it’s great that it’s so self-organized. I think there’s much more room to experiment, and there’s an opportunity which we need to harness and not see as [lacking]” she says of the potential held by the art scene in Sri Lanka.

She also singled out friendly people full of interesting memories and personal anecdotes in the Sri Lankan art community. Natasha first came to Sri Lanka, the home of her partner, in 2014 and co-curated Colomboscope a year later. She is currently Artistic Director of the festival that exhibits contemporary arts and encourages an interdisciplinary dialogue. In 2018, the festival ran over seven days in January in several Colombo locations such as the Rio Complex, Barefoot Gallery, Grand Oriental Hotel and Galle Face Green Hotel.

WALKING ISLAND 2 — Colomboscope 2019: *Sea Change*, Colombo (25–31 January 2019). Photography by Ruvin De Silva.

As a curator responsible for a l ocal festival, Natasha understands that the festival needs to be a “sustainable and context-responsive environment for cultural producers to continue generating path-breaking and genre-defying approaches in the field.”

“A lot of the work happens through writing, studio visits with artists or workshops with younger artists. We want to think about how we can equip the community,” she says of the larger role the festival plays in nurturing the local art scene through its focus on intimate gatherings and relationship building.

The festival featured several local artists such as Anoli Perera, Isuru Kumarasinghe and Jasmine Nilani Joseph; and international artists such as Hira Nabi, Armine Linke, and Henry Tan and partners.

“We think of [the festival] as a platform to try new vocabularies; and where new kinds of approaches can be laid out and explored.”

CLIMAVORE 2 — Cooking Sections, *CLIMAVORE: On Mangroves and Mudflats* (2019). Performance. Colomboscope 2019: *Sea Change*, Colombo (25–31 January 2019). Photography by Ruvin de Silva.

Iftikhar Dadi encourages curators to take the South Asian diaspora into consideration in their exhibitions: “The South Asian diaspora is enormous in cities such as Dubai, London, and New York. Curatorial initiatives in these places have also been instrumental in reconceiving South Asia beyond the restrictions of national borders.”

The Sri Lankan diaspora exists in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Europe, Australia, and the USA. The festival has provided a foundation for artists such as Sri Lankan-Swiss performer, Robin Myer; and Sri Lankan-Australians, Amara Raheem and Cresside Collette to exhibit their practices.

TASTE KARATHTHE 1 — Colomboscope 2019: *Sea Change*, Colombo (25–31 January 2019). Photography by Ruvin De Silva.

“These are artists who have lived away from the island and are finding their way back through the arts,” Natasha says.

For upcoming festivals, Natasha hopes to explore the rising interest in set forms of publishing (like zines and artist books), multimedia (like film and video), and identity politics that happen in the local art scene.

“There is more consciousness with gender, race and class-based questions in the way artists are producing work. In terms of a post-war society, how do you tackle these questions?” she says about the festival’s evolution and her responsibility as a curator in a country undergoing reconstruction and focused on reinterpretation for progress.

Travel, Terminology and The Not Cooking Show: An Interview with Ayo Tsalithaba

_MG_6107 — Ayo Tsalithaba, Portrait by Kezia Chapman.

Questions by Adi Berardini

Ayo Tsalithaba’s primary mediums include digital art, film photography and digital filmmaking. Largely influenced by music and travel, transporting the viewer everywhere from a dreamy alpaca farm to the village of Cheshee, their films address identity and the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Ayo is also the founder of The Bacon Berry Card Co., a small company specializing in cute greeting cards, stickers, prints and more.

Ayo has been featured in Huffington Post Canada, The Kit, TFO, the University of Toronto magazine and Munch Magazine. Additionally, they have screened their films and appeared on panels at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, University of Toronto, George Brown, the Revue Cinema, Xpace Cultural Centre, among others. Ayo is currently specializing in Women and Gender Studies and minoring in Linguistics at the University of Toronto. They hope to continue learning, taking risks, sparking conversations and above all else, advocating for positive social change.

Screen Shot 2018-11-29 at 4.39.02 PM — A KIKI WITH BOBBY BOWEN – direction, camera operating, editing, cinematography by Ayo Tsalithaba

One of your films interviews Bobby Bowen and discusses queer terminology specific to the African/Caribbean/Black community. I was wondering if you could further discuss this work?

The film that I made with Bobby was actually a final project for a class I took in my second year. We were supposed to work on a project that “produces knowledge” and to be honest, I didn’t really know what that meant. Instead, I wanted to turn to knowledge that is often overlooked and decided to blend what I was learning about linguistics and women and gender studies with my interest in film and make a short doc about queer terminology. I was also just getting into archiving and documenting Black queer histories, so this project was perfect. It’s stuff like this that keeps me going through school because I know that I can take what I’ve learned, strip it of pretentious (and unnecessary) gate-keeping academic jargon and put it on a screen. I know Bobby through my siblings and from admiring his work as a stylist, so I sent him an Instagram DM and we worked together. I just love this project because it was the first interview that I shot after my feature documentary and I felt like I got to apply what I’d learned to something short, sweet, educational and queer.

gb3 — GOODBYES by TiKA, DESIIRE, and CASEY MQ– direction, camera operating, editing, cinematography by Ayo Tsalithaba

I noticed that you often collaborate with musicians. What is your process for creating films for music?

I spend a lot of time listening to music and imagining what I would do with a song if I were given a budget and permission to make a visual for it. I would like to think that I’m constantly practicing music video filmmaking in my head whenever I listen to music, which makes it easier when an opportunity arises to be in the right frame of mind to come up with a concept. I usually start by listening to whatever song I am working with and jotting down ideas. Then I show them to the artist and see what they think and go from there. I like having a plan, but I also like letting go of it to some degree during the shoot. I make sure we have all the shots we need and then I like to play around and try out new things. After the shoot, I like taking a look at the videos and then I have to take some space before I start editing (unless I’m super excited to edit – in which case I could probably finish the video in a few hours).

_MG_5398 (1) — TiKA ft. HLMT All Day All Night – direction, camera operating, editing, cinematography, casting, concept by Ayo Tsalithaba

You mention on your site how travel first influenced your discovery of documentary filmmaking. Can you explain this further? In what other ways does travel inspire you?

I was very lucky to be able to travel a lot as a kid because whenever my dad was going on a trip and I didn’t have school, my mom and I would go with him. However, the first time I remember making a good travel film was when my parents and I went to visit my aunt in Mauritius. I spent the whole trip filming our journey across the island. I think that my [documentary] work was influenced by my travels because I remember just wanting to document everything I saw – whether it was through film or photos – and that would allow me to keep taking it all in long after I had returned home. It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to make a film on every trip that I go on, and if I don’t have the time for a film, I make sure to take as many photos as I can. It’s funny because now I don’t travel nearly as much anymore because of school, because I’m trying to save up and also because I hate flying. I would still love to shoot a documentary that allows me to travel, but for now, I just have a list of places I want to visit.

Ayo Tsalithaba, Portrait by Kezia Chapman..

Ayo Tsalithaba, Portrait by Kezia Chapman.

Do you think that photography and film can be used as a tool for social change? If so, how do you think it contributes to change?

Oh yes, absolutely a hundred times yes! I think my life’s work resides in art for social change – I’m so committed to it. I love making things look, sound, and feel beautiful, and to mix that with an important message is the best harmony there could be. I want to broaden photography and film to art, in general, to answer this question, because art has always been so important in championing change and artists have played an instrumental role in such. I can’t help but think of Nina Simone and how strongly some of her songs pushed for dreaming about Black liberation. I think art contributes to change by allowing people to sink into a struggle and see, hear, or feel something that was made with love and care. I want my art to be something that allows people to experience a shared struggle remotely. In a lot of my films, I try to make space for fear, anger, sadness, outrage, happiness, jubilation, love, hate and more emotions that I have felt while I was alone. In a lot of cases, I wish I had one of my films to watch and cry to or laugh to or just be angry about the current state of affairs to. One of the little ways I try and contribute to social change is making art for it. Eventually, when people trust me enough to give me a bunch of money to make things, it’ll be about bringing people who haven’t had access to funded art together and paying them. And then it’ll be about putting money and opportunities back into communities that need them.

Who are some artists that influence you?

I know I’m going to forget people and this list is in no particular order, but: my whole family, Nina Simone, Kara Walker, Mickalene Thomas, Tika, Miriam Makeba, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Noor Khan, Sean Brown, Twysted Miyake Mugler, Syrus Marcus Ware, Solange Knowles, Vivek Shraya, Ruth E. Carter, Morgan Sears-Williams, Sean Leon, Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, Elisha Lim, Barry Jenkins, Sydney Allen-Ash, Tegan and Sara, Ava Duvernay, Nayani Thiyagarajah and so many more that I know I’m forgetting!

Screen Shot 2017-04-07 at 2.09.45 PM — Hallmark of Tolerance film by Ayo Tsalithaba

You are multi-talented—you work as a digital artist/photographer/filmmaker and you have a greeting card business, Bacon Berry Card Co. What are you interested in exploring next?

I am very interested in cooking! I absolutely love cooking and eating. I have a food Instagram account (@notcookingshow) that I’m trying to turn into a cooking show because I know that I’d be a great cooking show host. Other than that, I see myself designing clothing because I struggle to find clothes that fit me and don’t give me dysphoria and I know there are other people who feel the same. Ultimately with all of the things that I’m interested in, I just want to help provide and spread opportunities, experiences and stories that aren’t out there. And also make money and give it to people who need it and help create programming and services that cater to underserved communities.

Carbon Study: Walking in the Dark by Genevieve Robertson

Access Gallery – January 12 to February 23, 2019

By Caitlin Almond

Access_Robertson_carbon_study-1 — Genevieve Robertson, *Carbon Study Installation,* 2019. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography.

Carbon Study: Walking in the Dark is the result of Genevieve Robertson’s recent residency at the artist-run centre Access Gallery, curated by Access’s director and curator, Katie Belcher. Carbon Study: Walking in the Dark invites the viewer to enter Robertson’s captivating microcosm of monochromatic drawings of organic forms delicately oscillating between figuration and abstraction. The exhibition is a continuation of Genevieve Robertson’s current drawing practice, which taxonomically explores ephemeral materiality and organic forms of carboniferous flora and fauna, as a means to interrogate British Columbia’s exploitative landscape economy. In Access Gallery’s small space, Robertson deftly navigates the challenges of creating politically charged works without sacrificing any aesthetic sensibility.

Gr Access 2 — Genevieve Robertson, *Carbon Study Detail,* 2019. Photo by Caitlin Almond.

Access_Robertson_carbon_study-5 — Genevieve Robertson, *Carbon Study Installation,* 2019. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography.

The curation of the space very effectively guides the viewer through the gallery space. Upon entering the gallery, the viewer is directed to the right of the gallery where the three large focal works are situated, a large drawing of a horizontal leaf fragmented onto four pieces of paper, a grid composed of several smaller bituminous abstract drawings, and a large amorphous drawing of a lichen. The viewer is then slowly guided out of the space by six smaller works unified by scale and composition which are comfortably spaced throughout the rest of the gallery.

Access_Robertson_carbon_study-4 — Genevieve Robertson, *Carbon Study Installation,* 2019. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography.

The drawings, have a distinctly monochromatic palette of white, black and gray, appearing simultaneously crisp and soft on the ever so slightly warped and unframed white paper, asserting the ephemeral materiality of the medium itself. Robertson’s large-scale drawings on paper are made with coal, charcoal, and graphite – foraged by the artist herself during walks through British Columbia’s fire-ravaged landscape (a process which informed the title of this exhibition). This use of carbon-based materials in Robertson’s work is a provocative effort by the artist to create an elemental sense of life through inherently decayed materials, teasing the viewer with a simultaneous experience of both construction and destruction.

Although, Robertson’s works are self-contained, marketable objects, they share a commonality with earthworks and land art in that they are conceived and created as “Fully engaged elements of their respective environments that asserted new conditions, […] They were (among other things) expressions of a dialectic in nature – the opposing forces of creation and destruction.” (Beardsley 1). While the simplistic figure-ground relationship employed in all the drawings, does initially serve the artist and curators intention for the works to read as taxonomic botanical drawings – it very quickly becomes repetitious and overly contrived in the gallery’s small space. This serial repetition of the minimalistic figure-ground relationship causes the work to appear less like a taxonomic study and more like a predictable sampling of slides from a Rorschach inkblot test. The strength of Robertson’s work in Carbon Study: Walking in the Dark rests in the materiality and physicality of her handmade pigments. The crystalline texture of her foraged graphite glimmers on the paper’s surface, creating a startling texture to her drawings which disrupts the viewer’s expectation of the medium itself.

Works Cited

Beardsley, John. “Traditional Aspects of New Land Art.” Art Journal, vol. 42, no. 3, 1982, pp. 226–232. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/776583.

SPRING/BREAK Art Show: Spiritual Art Advisory

Installation — *Spiritual Art Advisory, photo via Samuel Morgan Photography*

By Chloe Hyman

On March 5, SPRING/BREAK Art Show descended upon 866 United Nations Plaza, where it will remain in all its tangible, technicolor glory until Monday, March 11. Held annually during Armory Week in New York City, the show challenges the exclusivity of the art fair, providing no-cost exhibition space to emerging and established artists and curators. Its transformation of corporate and government space— this time at the United Nations, the dictionary definition of ‘government space’— is a sharp commentary on the underlying societal institutions that support an exclusionary art world.

IMG_6892 (1) — Sarah Potter and Caroline Larsen, Photo by Christos Katsiaouni

Experimental art and curatorial practices always abound at SPRING/BREAK, but one particular exhibit caught my eye this year— the divinely opulent “Spiritual Art Advisory,” curated by Sarah Potter and Caroline Larsen. The 22 featured artists in this exhibition have all contributed a work inspired by the Tarot’s Major Arcana, and their responses vary in medium and tone. Equally present in the space are the curators, Potter and Larsen, whose roles are not so easy to define. They are both exhibition conceptualizers and spiritual guides, inviting the viewer to engage spiritually with the works and to question Tarot’s magical potential. I spoke to them about their unique curatorial approach. Below are excerpts from our conversation:

Chloe Hyman: Sarah, tell me about your journey into magic(k) and your experience in the art world. What is your background as a curator?

Sarah Potter: Since I was a child, art and magic(k) have always been a part of my life. I have tried to run away from it but it always pulls me back in… I honestly cannot even imagine my life without these two important elements in it every day! I have a background in gallery work and event planning, so as the art world has evolved I have enjoyed evolving my business with it. I love curating experiences for visitors, connecting collectors to artwork that thrills them, and creating ephemeral experiences that last a moment but stay with a visitor forever.

CH: And Caroline, What is your background in the art world and your connection to Tarot?

Caroline Larsen: I am a painter and I also love to curate exhibitions! I am attracted to Tarot because of the beauty of the decks. Each deck that I looked at [while] doing research for the show was so beautiful that I wanted to make my own card and invite artists whose work I love and admire to make their own as well.

CH: How did you select the artists for this exhibition?

CL: Sarah and I worked on the list together. Some of the exhibiting artists have a tarot practice and others do not, but their work lends itself to the theme. It was really interesting to see how abstract artists interpreted the cards.

CH: How do you see the individual works as existing in dialogue with one another?

CL: Each artist picked a piece of work from the Major Arcana so we hung the exhibition based off of the order of the cards in the deck. All the work in the exhibition is so strong and so different that each work can stand on its own, but they work so lovely as a set too!

SP: Every artist really brought it, and I am so incredibly proud of how it all came together. Group shows can sometimes be chaotic or challenging, but this feels really harmonious and balanced.

CH: And are the artists all femme-identifying?

SP: There is a diverse mix of artist perspectives here. We didn’t set out to do an all-women show, we just wanted to show the highest quality work for our curation. I do not believe in curating all-women shows, [as] it feels a bit reductive, but I am drawn to a woman’s perspective and it’s important to me to provide a platform for women, now more than ever. I am not going to exclude men from my curatorial conversation in order to heighten the work of women artists. I honestly do not see how that is helping anyone. I just want to show the best quality of work!

CH: I realize my assumption that your exhibition centered femme artists comes from the fact that I only know womxn who practice magic(k). Why do you think womxn are so drawn to magic(k)?

SP: Witchcraft is intuitively guided, and I think women naturally tap into that energy more easily because of our societal constructs.

SP: Lala Abaddon really flipped the script on gender with her portrayal of the emperor, the card that embodies masculine energy. She chose to depict her emperor through a nude self-portrait! It’s a very powerful piece.

CH: I love the way Abbadon’s Emperor is hung between Langdon Grave’s Empress and the wall. What might originally have been a feminine/masculine dichotomy is muddied, the latter taking ‘masculine’ blue as its central hue but centering the female form. What emerges from that new relationship feels really pure, like the essence of each card has been removed from the gendered hands of history.

The relationship between these two works points to the exhibition’s strong curatorial presence. In many shows, the curation is felt rather than seen. The casual viewer may pass through and focus exclusively on the artwork itself, not considering the impact of space on the exhibition as a whole. But you are using the work of these artists to engage with visitors regarding their own spiritual needs. Your voices as ‘curator-healers’ are very noticeable in this relationship. Would you agree with this interpretation?

SP: I do agree! Thank you, you nailed it. I feel like the curator is almost the narrator of the story, curating the space and directing the flow of energy in the room through the selection and arrangement of the work. Each piece should enhance the overall story and add to the visual dialogue with a strong point of view.

caroline_larsen___-1552178889810 — *The Empress* by Langdon Graves

CH: Is visitor participation often a key element of your curatorial practices?

SP: Being an artist can be very solitary, [with] long days in the studio laboring alone. The work needs other eyes on it—it needs to be displayed and experienced by others. Once viewers can experience the work, the circle is completed and the work and its intentions is fully realized.

CH: Participatory art is definitely a strong theme here. What do you like about SPRING/BREAK? Have you ever exhibited or curated an exhibition here before?

CL: SPRING/BREAK is a pretty dynamic fair! It’s always moving to new locations and you never know what you’re going to get. I have shown work there as an artist twice, once at the post office location and once at Times Square. I have curated twice, once at Times Square and now at the UN Office.

SP: I love SPRING/BREAK! This is my third time curating an exhibition for this fair and it keeps getting better and better each year. I love that the [emphasis] is placed on curatorial concepts and radical vision. You feel it throughout the entire space. Ambre and Andrew have done an incredible job fostering such a creative environment—that authenticity is felt. My clients always tell me it is their favorite fair to collect work from and visit every year. Of course, that makes me happy to hear, too.

CH: What do you hope viewers will take away from the exhibition emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually?

SP: I hope viewers enjoy contemplating the imagery and symbolism of each card’s archetype and the way the artists interpreted each card. Playing with the fair’s curatorial theme of “Fact and Fiction,” I hope that viewers question the role of the Tarot and consider whether it has the divinatory ability to transcend realms and offer a magical peek into their own future.

* * *

Inspired by my conversation with Potter and Larsen, I decided to embark on my own spiritual journey within the exhibit. I chose four works that really spoke to me as if I’d drawn them from the deck myself. Then I spoke to each artist and allowed their words to inform my…potential destiny.

caroline_larsen___-1552178903306 — *Justice* by Kate Klingbeil

I started with Kate Klingbeil’s interpretation of Justice, which utilizes black sand, acrylic, watercolor, and vinyl to depict a winged Justice presiding over the people. Her body language is contradictory; while her left-hand rests gently on her breast, her right clenches an anthropomorphic sword. Tiny naked human figures dangle from the scales of justice, falling to the murky violet depths below. All the while she looks on peacefully, her eyes downcast, a small smile on her lips. Her serenity is opposed by an ominous eye, the whites of which are tinged a sickly pink, that ensnares the viewer’s gaze.

“I chose the justice card because it offered me a chance to meditate on balance and truth,” Klingbeil says. The artist based her depiction off the imagery in the Serravalle-Sesia Tarot—a late 19th-century Italian deck—but the swarm of tiny people climbing Justice are her own addition. They heighten the significance of the deity’s serene expression. “She remains unphased,” Klingbeil explains. Because she remains calm despite the tumultuous scene below her, “we have to believe that truth will prevail.”

caroline_larsen___-1552178913750 — *The Star* by Margot Bird

Next I pulled the Star, interpreted by Margot Bird with acrylic paint, epoxy putty, and gold leaf. I was drawn to its kitsch factor, the way aliens, poodles, and pastel hues could someway come together to create something that registers as divine. I fully believed in the existence of these poodle-human hybrid creatures, and I acknowledged that they danced beside the sun, pouring stars to the whirlpool below. Perhaps the sheer abundance of pastel hues created a strange cohesion that rendered itself supernaturally Other.

Or maybe Bird has translated the essence of the truly divine Star into something comprehensible for the human mind. “I feel like [The Star] represents bursts of creativity, inspiration, and optimism,” says Bird. She emphasized anything that passed through her mind that felt new and untouched, like “those feelings of sudden inspiration and positivity.” The inclusion of aliens speaks to her strong desire to share, and so these creatures receive cups of star water, receiving the creativity and happiness she feels inside.

Third I chose Strength, depicted with grace by Hiba Schahbaz. In this mixed-media work, crafted with gouache, watercolor, gold leaf, and tea, a woman sits nose-to-nose with a lion, naked as he. The serenity of both creatures feels a bit ambiguous. Perhaps the woman shows strength to sit so calmly with a predatory carnivore. Or maybe the harmony of the two beings engenders a different kind of strength, a power not measured through action or brute force, but through connection and understanding and taking the time to find peace and resolve differences.

“I love the harmony between the lion and the lady,” says Schahbaz. “It gives me a feeling of being connected to my best self. There is no fear, just perfection.” The artist’s words suggest the lion as a kind of self-portrait, a reflection of the inner self as a powerful lion, strong yet never impulsive. “A sense of protection, perseverance, grace, and love,” she adds.

Jen Dwyer Temperance _5 — *Temperance* by Jen Dwyer

Lastly, I come to Temperance, sculpted by Jen Dwyer, whose ceramic contribution to the deck exhibits similar dichotomies of darkness and lightness. Her ornamented black vases are humanoid, black hands emerging from the clay to tighten around their necks. Or are they resting gently in a soft embrace? The presence of rope winding its way around the bodies of the vases suggests the former, but there is something very meditative about them nonetheless that suggests peace.

“The temperance card is all about balance, which I interpreted as a form of self-care,” Dwyer explains. “I’ve been thinking about the Audre Lorde quote, ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.’” The artist’s words reinforce the presence of both tension and peace in her work. What strikes me is the agency the hand represents in deciding whether it will be used for self-harm or self-care. “I’m definitely pointing the finger at myself,” she says. “I could get a lot better at taking some space from the studio.”

SPRING/BREAK is open through Monday, March 11^th. Stop by E25 to ponder your own future. Sarah Potter and Caroline Larsen will be close by if you need a spiritual guide.