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Subliminal Horizons: Part 2
Curated by Alvin Hall
Germantown: August 20—October 3, 2021
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Subliminal Horizons, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)
I always envisioned a horizontal, floor-based work of art at the opening of Subliminal Horizons. The exhibition's focus, BIPOC artists living and working in the Hudson Valley today, necessarily asks viewers to engage with the unconsidered, the overlooked, and the historically disregarded. Thus, it was natural for the exhibition to lead with works like Huma Bhabha's Road to Balkh, (2015) in New York, and Kianja Strobert's flotilla of metal lathe, papier mâché, and acrylic vessel-like sculpture in Germantown. These works evoke thoughts about how people traveled through the Hudson Valley by land and water; but they also prompt thoughts about what was carved out, built, altered, and expanded as migration, industrialization and natural shifts transformed the majestic landscapes portrayed in Hudson River School paintings into an economy. Many of the people who lived and worked there-indigenous, Black, brown, Asian, waves of immigrants from Europe-were not included until recently in the historical narrative about the area. The content of their labor is ever-present but, more often than not, taken for granted. The thematic threads running through Subliminal Horizons reveal or foreground multiple facets and implications of landscape, migration, and history.
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Selected works by Kianja Strobert
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Kianja Strobert7W, 2021Paper, wood, foam core, and acrylic paint16 1/2 x 19 x 3 1/2 in framed (41.9 x 48.3 x 8.9 cm framed)(KS020)
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Kianja Strobert25, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, and acrylic paintApprox 13 x 44 x 20 in (33 x 111.8 x 50.8 cm)(KS010)
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Kianja StrobertE1, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, and acrylic paintApprox 35 x 18 1/2 x 2 1/4 in (88.9 x 47 x 5.7 cm)(KS019)
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Kianja Strobert14, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, acrylic paint, and paper backingApprox 10 1/2 x 9 3/4 x 1 3/4 in (26.7 x 24.8 x 4.4 cm)(KS003)
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Kianja Strobert16, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, and acrylic paintApprox 25 3/4 x 16 3/4 x 7 7/8 in (65.4 x 42.5 x 20 cm)(KS005)
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Kianja Strobert18, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, acrylic paint, and paper backingApprox 25 1/4 x 21 1/8 x 6 1/4 in (64.1 x 53.7 x 15.9 cm)(KS006)
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Kianja Strobert19, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, acrylic paint, and paper backingApprox 20 x 21 1/4 x 5 3/4 in (50.8 x 54 x 14.6 cm)(KS007)
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Kianja Strobert24, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, and acrylic paintApprox 47 x 19 1/4 x 8 3/4 in (119.4 x 48.9 x 22.2 cm)(KS009)
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Kianja Strobert46, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, acrylic paint, and paperApprox 21 1/8 x 17 1/4 x 7 3/4 in (53.7 x 43.8 x 19.7 cm)(KS018)
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Kianja Strobert21, 2021Metal lathe, papier máché, and paperApprox 27 1/4 x 18 5/8 x 7 3/4 in (69.2 x 47.3 x 19.7 cm)(KS008)
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Kianja Strobert22, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, and acrylic paintApprox 27 1/2 x 19 1/4 x 8 1/2 in (69.8 x 48.9 x 21.6 cm)(KS011)
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Kianja Strobert45, 2021Metal lathe, papier mâché, acrylic paint, and paperApprox 18 1/2 x 8 5/8 x 3 7/8 in (47 x 21.9 x 9.8 cm)(KS017)
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Xaviera Simmons, If We Believe in Theory #1, 2009. Chromogenic color print. 40 x 50 in (101.6 x 127 cm). 41 1/8 x 51 1/8 x 2 1/4 in framed (104.5 x 129.9 x 5.7 cm framed). Edition of 3 (EC 1/1). (XS002)
The natural world figures strongly in many of the works on view. Xaviera Simmons' Thundersnow Road (2010)and If We Believe in Theory 1 (2009) reference both the ground-level density of the landscape and the forward-looking drive of those traversing it. Diana Al-Hadid's works, especially Styx and Stones (2021) and Untitled (2020), offer a visual rumination on the raw, confronting energy of the waterways, the ever-present closeness of multiple-layered Nature that has its own beauty-mysterious of course but also surprisingly abstract when considered from afar. Lisa Corinne Davis's map-like abstract paintings, Psychotropic Turf, 2015 and Congruous Fantasy, 2017, suggest a similar consideration of estuaries, land, people, and other elements from different, equally thought-provoking visual perspectives.
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Selected works on view
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Xaviera SimmonsThundersnow Road, 2010Chromogenic color print41 1/8 x 51 1/8 x 1 3/4 in framed (104.5 x 129.9 x 4.4 cm framed)Edition of 3 (EC 1/1)(XS001)
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Diana Al-HadidUntitled, 2021Conté, charcoal, pastel, and acrylic on mylar42 x 60 in (106.6 x 152.4 cm)(DA003)
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Lisa Corinne DavisCongruous Fantasy, 2017Oil on panel24 x 36 x 1 1/2 in (61 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm)(LCD002)
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Jeffrey Gibson, POWERFUL BECAUSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT, 2019. Cotton, linen, wool, and nylon. 81 1/2 x 101 in (207 x 256.5 cm) (JG003)
Where many of the artists working in the Hudson Valley today focus explicitly on landscape and migration, the importance of material and craft––and the cultures from which they derive and which they interpolate––are also prominent themes. The bright colors of Jeffrey Gibson’s tapestry, Powerful Because They’re Different (2019) combines elements from his heritage (Cherokee and Choctaw) with those of other Indigenous people (the Navajo’s “eye-dazzler” weaving), to boldly proclaim aphorisms, idioms, messages, and beliefs that bring forth reflections about the many ways truth, strength, and resilience are sustained in cultures. (One also thinks about incantations that tap into the spirits of ancestors.) Laleh Khorramian’s Lady Totem (2021) and Tschabalala Self’s No (019) combine craft techniques traditionally associated with women in ways that prompt thoughts about how the female figure functions as a landscape upon which various beliefs and fantasies are projected. A closer look reveals that these art works share thought-provoking commonalities that connect them across cultures, across time.
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Selected works on view
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Subliminal Horizons, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown (2021)
Connections and relationships between individuals are often the source from which the blending of cultural practices and concepts begins, often in fascinating, curious, and bewitching ways. David Hammons’ serene Buddha stature with an African mask as its head radiates a multitude of cross-cultural references about deities, worship, serenity, beauty, synthesis, and adaptation. The fact that the combination of the two found objects feels perfectly aligned aesthetically and spiritually speaks to the unexpected elevation and richness that synthesis can yield. Jennie C. Jones’s spare drawings of vertical music staffs extend this blending into our minds as ethereal, random, calming cords of music or chants. Visually, Hammon’s and Jone’s works together remind viewers of the many ways solemnness can be found—created by nature and by artists.
Today in the Hudson Valley, distinct, individual narratives are declared, not quieted, shaded, or reshaped by the assimilation embraced by previous generations. Lyle Ashton Harris’s bold assemblages Trophy Piece (2020), and Antiquariato Busted (2020) embed diaristic photographs printed on aluminum and personal ephemera (for example, Harris’s dreadlocks) on a background of printed fabric from Ghana. Harris is boldly using his work to say who he is, what cultural perspective he brings to the area. Jeffrey Gibson’s Infinite Indigenous Queer Love (2020) is both his unapologetic personal narrative and his self-loving embrace that he offers to others.
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Selected works on view
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Lyle Ashton HarrisTrophy Piece, 2020Conjoined Ghanaian cloth, two dye sublimation prints on aluminum, spray-painted stencils, and artist's dreadlocks40 5/8 x 49 3/4 x 3 in framed (103.2 x 126.4 x 7.6 cm framed)(LAH002)
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Jennie C. JonesUntitled (Segue Score) Diptych #4, 2021Collage, acrylic, and ink on paper in 2 parts20 x 16 in (50.8 x 40.6 cm), 20 x 15 in (50.8 x 38.1 cm)
23 x 19 x 1 3/4 in framed each (58.4 x 48.3 x 4.4 cm framed each)(JCJ106)
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Carlos Vega, Morebat et Dolebat I, 2020. Acrylic on canvas. 10 x 13 in (25.4 x 33 cm). 11 3/8 x 14 3/8 x 2 in framed (28.9 x 36.5 x 5.1 cm framed). (CV001)
Carlos Vega (Morebat et Dolebat I, 2020) and Melvin Edwards (Accord, 2017) evoke thoughts about the deliberate suppression and violence that was also a part of the history of the Hudson Valley. This truth and the facts of the specific incidents were, for years, out of sight and out of mind-deliberately overlooked in a narrative that highlighted the sublime landscapes and the architectural palaces of robber barons and successful artists.
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Selected works by Carlos Vega
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Selected works by Melvin Edwards
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Melvin EdwardsAddis A., 2007Welded steel13 x 10 1/4 x 7 1/2 in (33 x 26 x 19.1 cm)(ME254)
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Melvin EdwardsAccord, 2017Welded steel and barbed wire12 1/8 x 7 1/8 x 5 in (31.11 x 18.41 x 12.7 cm)(ME567)
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Melvin EdwardsYet to be titled, 2019Stainless steel68 x 24 x 12 in (172.72 x 60.96 x 30.48 cm)(ME1035)
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Subliminal Horizons, installation view, Alexander Gray Associates, New York (2021)
Romanticism and erasure have long been partners in sustaining dominant notions of the American Dream—notions that have historically marginalized or removed BIPOC people. Karlos Cárcamo’s paintings (Kase Paintings (P1,) 2021) and works on paper (Untitled Studies for Kase Paintings, 2019) bring these ghosts to the surface. His artworks show what’s left after his tag and that of other graffiti artists are erased. In these works, Cárcamo applies the same chemicals to the art works that are used by authorities to remove tags from buildings. In some works, the individual’s artistic identity is totally lost and unrecognizable; in others, part of the tag can almost be deciphered. His minimal, almost monochromatic works, reclaim the power of absence, evoking a longing to know—more curiosity than nostalgia. In Glenn Ligon’s Introduction (5) (2004), and Notes on the Prelude (2012), erasure results from accumulation. As stories are told and retold by different people over time, the essay or tale acquires a patina that may distort or make less visible the original. Alternatively, words, phrases, and passage may fall away, hollowing out what was originally captured or intended.
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Selected works on view by Karlos Cárcamo
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Karlos CárcamoKase Painting (P6), 2021Latex and spray enamel, graffiti remover, and collage on canvas in reclaimed plywood frame29 x 25 x 2 in framed (73.7 x 63.5 x 5.1 cm framed)(KC018)
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Karlos CárcamoA Concrete Movement (For George Floyd), 2020White vinyl records, black plexiglass, latex and spray enamel, and plywood pedestal54 x 16 x 16 in (137.2 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm)(KC002)
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Henri Paul Broyard, GTPS, 2019. Acrylic, flashe, spray paint, and correction fluid on canvas. 40 x 30 in (101.6 x 76.2 cm). (HPB003)
The same is true of the memory of a place-a landscape, a road, a room. Henri Paul Broyard's painting of interiors (TFFSD, 2016 and GTPS, 2019) use vernacular photographs as their source material. Broyard focuses on a section of the photograph in which there are no people. In his artworks, the arrangement of the furniture, the vases, the lamps, the decorative objects, the paintings on the walls are the references and stimuli for the viewer's recollections. The interiors could be in a home in Anywhere America, but his small, often quirky inventions added to the scenes prompts us to rethink exactly what we are looking at, especially its relationship to real memory and emotional memory.
I selected the art works in Subliminal Horizons partly to leave the viewer with resonating thoughts about cultures, histories, erasure, resilience, and rebirth in the Hudson River Valley. They were also chosen for the distinct individuality of each voice, each artistic practice, and each intent. To paraphrase the title of Jeffery Gibson's tapestry: The power of these artists comes from their difference.
– Alvin Hall
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Selected works by Henri Paul Broyard
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Additional works on view
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Huma BhabhaNot About You, 2012Wood, wire, Styrofoam, wire mesh, cork, lucite, and acrylic paint65 1/2 x 11 1/8 x 12 1/2 in (166.4 x 28.3 x 31.8 cm)(HB002)
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Kenji FujitaSet/Reset #16, 2021Oil on canvas mounted on MDF20 x 16 in (50.8 x 40.6 cm)(KFU003)
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Angel OteroUntitled, 2017Oil paint and fabric collaged on paper30 x 22 1/2 x 1/4 in (76.2 x 57.1 x 0.6 cm)
32 3/4 x 25 1/2 x 1 3/4 in framed (83.2 x 64.8 x 4.4 cm framed)(AO002)
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Adam PendletonUntitled, 2019Collage on paper15 1/2 x 10 1/2 in (39.37 x 26.67 cm)
18 1/8 x 13 in framed (46.04 x 33.02 cm framed)(AP004) -
Glenn LigonNotes on the Prelude, 2012Aquatint with drypoint21 1/2 x 17 in (54.6 x 43.2 cm)
23 1/2 x 19 x 1 5/8 in framed (59.7 x 48.3 x 4.1 cm framed)Edition of 35 with 10 APs (#33/35)(GL004) -
Martin PuryearUntitled (State 1), 2016Intaglio in 3 colors on Hahnemühle bright white paper41 x 40 in (104.1 x 101.6 cm)
44 3/8 x 43 3/8 x 2 in framed (112.7 x 110.2 x 5.1 cm framed)Edition of 29 (#18/29)(MP002)
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