Lehmann Maupin returns to FOG Design+Art with a presentation of new works by Robin Rhode, Teresita Fernández, and Arcmanoro Niles. Spanning a variety of interdisciplinary media including drawing, photography, and painting, these works contend with the relationship between place and identity.
In conjunction with his exhibition African Dream Root in New York, Robin Rhode’s Taraxacum (2022) takes inspiration from the artist’s extensive research into botany, as well as the visual and oral traditions of his native South Africa. Taraxacum (the taxonomic name for dandelion), depicts a flower against a blue wall while a silhouetted figure interacts with the painting in the foreground. The geometric pattern alludes to South African traditions of ancient rock art and entoptic phenomena, which refers to subjective visual effects created within the eye when psychoactive botanicals have been consumed during shamanistic healing rituals. In posing the wall as a portal between the spiritual and physical realms, Rhode builds a bridge between contemporary life and ancient South African traditions.
In her ongoing Dark Earth series, Teresita Fernández transforms thousands of delicate slivers of raw charcoal into meticulously assembled relief images that suggest an expansive idea of place—from the ancient and historical to the futuristic and cosmic. Imagined as a vertical cross-section that spans from underground geologic layers to heavenly realms, Dark Earth(Low Moon) (2022) reveals subterranean elements, invisible to the eye—embedded into the charcoal ground. Fernández has said “landscape is more about what you don’t see than what you do see,” and her deep consideration of landscape unapologetically plunges deep into the buried, often omitted or erased colonial violence that continues to shape our present-day perceptions of the people and places around us.
A new painting by Arcmanoro Niles contends with what it means to say goodbye to people, places, and behaviors. You Were Falling in Love and I Was Falling Apart (I Guess It Ain’t No Right Way To Say Goodbye Again) depicts a figure at the top of a staircase walking through a doorway. The poetic title evokes a sense of melancholy and nostalgia, infusing an otherwise mundane scene with an emotional weight. Niles prioritizes an expressive and vibrant color palette over strict adherence to naturalism. As Niles says, “When I let naturalism go, the works end up feeling more real to me.” Working at the intersection of the figurative and banal, Niles asks us to contemplate the omnipresence of change, and the continuous cycle of beginnings and endings.
Booth 304 will also present installation works by Cecilia Vicuña and Nari Ward. On view is a selection of Cecilia Vicuña’s Precarios–intimately scaled sculptures created from urban debris and found materials, fastened together with string. Bridging the artificial and the natural, Vicuña’s Precarios articulate the traces that humans leave upon our environment, pondering the suffering of nature and the perilousness of being. Vicuña’s Brain Forest Quipu (2022) is currently on view at the Tate Modern in London. Nari Ward’s SUPERLOCK Flag (2022) features an American flag covered in black plastic retail security tags, like those used to prevent theft. Ward’s flag extends from the wall at a slant, a display often utilized in residential settings by homeowners, and the security tags obscure and distort its surface. The viewer is left to grapple with the current state of America, and to consider who is protected and who is harmed in the pursuit of American values.
Other highlights include Golden Court (Hour) (2022), a new painting by Dominic Chambers; new paintings by Tammy Nguyen; as well as works by Lee Bul, Billy Childish, Mandy El-Sayegh, Nicholas Hlobo, Catherine Opie, Helen Pashgian, Alex Prager, and Suh Se Ok.