Exhibition featuring new collaborative works by 28

artists from 10 countries to debut at the Austrian

Cultural Forum New York and Undercurrent.

Co-curated by Daina Mattis and Melinda Wang

The Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Undercurrent are pleased to present un/mute, an international group exhibition of collaborative works by 28 artists across multiple disciplines. On view at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Undercurrent, the exhibition is the culmination of an 18-month-long project that was launched in 2020 to provide European and NYC-based artists an opportunity for critical exchange and collaboration during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

What do communication and collaboration mean in a time of uncertainty and isolation? How is the artistic process impacted by going “fully remote”? In un/mute, artists from 10 countries were paired to explore these questions. We recognize that effective communication requires active engagement of all the senses and an openness to diversity, interpretation and digitalization. But what does that look like in practice? The project challenged teams to overcome the limitations of lockdowns as they connected across artistic mediums, language, culture, generations and time zones to find new forms of expression and meaning within art.

un/mute is the physical manifestation of online conversations among strangers who became collaborators. What began as abstract, ephemeral and digital are now 14 tactile, analog and concrete artworks presented across two locations. The artists confronted the parameters imposed by the lockdowns and each team found creative solutions that we might all learn from. The common thread that runs through the sculptures, installations, films, drawings, photographs and performances is the importance of language.  

 Ever-evolving, language encapsulates an innate power dynamic that is renegotiated, redistributed and reimagined in uncertain times. While words like “screenshare,” “Zoom-bombing” and “unmute” enter a universal lexicon, and “#relatable” memes are shared across cultures, we also face the limits of language as we work to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding. Cultures and countries apart, the artists endeavored to find a bridge across two points in (virtual) space through the ephemeral Zoom link. What they also discovered were empathy from a fellow artist, discussions that sparked new ideas, a shared language around the creative process and a rethinking of the power of art.  

 With cities re-opening, a recontextualized focus on systemic racism and xenophobia, and our collective experience of 18 months of self-reflection, un/mute observes the transition into a new epoch – one that imagines an inclusive and diverse ecosystem. Differences may surface in times of cooperation and compromise, but synergy can be forged through friction. We trip, we regain our balance, we shift, we reconsider. What is crucial is that when we do have the chance to rise to meet the moment, we seize the opportunity and “click unmute.”

/Photo credit: Vytenis Jankunas

EXHIBITING ARTISTS: Eren Aksu (Germany), Anna Bera (Poland), Aaron Bezzina (Malta), Alex Camilleri (Malta), Mariella Cassar-Cordina (Malta), Saddie Choua (Flanders, Belgium), Sanne De Wilde (Flanders, Belgium), FOQL (Poland), Gabrielė Gervickaitė (Lithuania), Nicola Ginzel (Austria), Justyna Górowska (Poland), Kris Grey (NYC), Kyle Hittmeier (NYC), Ada Van Hoorebeke (Flanders, Belgium), Olesja Katšanovskaja–Münd (Estonia), Mo Kong (NYC), Yi Hsuan Lai (NYC), H. Lan Thao Lam (NYC), Marie Lukáčová (Czech Republic), Sheila Maldonado (NYC), Ieva Mediodia (Lithuania), Emmanuel Massillon (NYC), Alex Mirutziu (Romania), Luisa Muhr (Austria), Barbara Maria Neu (Austria), Emily Shanahan (NYC), Sydney Shavers (NYC) and Terttu Uibopuu (Estonia).

un/mute is a project by Undercurrent and the following members of EUNIC NY - European Union National Institutes for Culture: Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Czech Center New York, Consulate General of Estonia in New York, Delegation of Flanders to the USA, Goethe-Institut New York, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Arts Council Malta in New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York and Romanian Cultural Institute. un/mute is also supported by EUNIC Global, the European Union Delegation to the United Nations, Hope Recycling Station and Jindřich Chalupecký Society.

For media inquiries please contact:

MaryKat Hoeser
ACFNY Head of Communications
mary-katerina.hoeser@bmeia.gv.at
(212) 319-5300 ext.78

Dalia Stonienė
dalia@studiostripe.nyc
(718) 316-5509

CREDITS:

/Co-Curators: Daina Mattis + Melinda Wang

/Exhibition Executive Producer and Exhibition Coordinator/ACFNY: Nina Monschein

/Exhibition Coordinator/Undercurrent: Daina Mattis

/Assistant to Exhibition Coordinator/ACFNY: Anouk Weber

/Assistant to Exhibition Coordinator/Undercurrent: Patricia Geyerhahn

/Exhibition Design: Laura Zaveckaitė

/Installation Architect/Design: Julius Ludavičius

/Publicist: Dalia Stonienė

/Head of Communications/ACFNY: Mary-Katerina Hoeser

/Photographer: David Plakke

/Project coordinator and Chair/EUNIC Representative: Christian Ebner

/Web Development: Moacir P. de Sá Pereira

IMPORTANT: TO VISIT EXHIBITION CLICK ON ANY OF “THE RIGHT TO BREATHE” TITLES. To navigate between the eight galleries for this exhibition please find the + (plus sign) within the left menu. This is found after the exhibition introduction, after you enter the gallery, and after the controls are introduced. You can explore any of the galleries within this drop down menu.

Greece in USA launches the second iteration of its program for the internationalization of Greek Culture in the USA. The group exhibition The Right to Breathe takes as a starting point the “shortness of breath” derived from the experience of political pressure, social injustice, and economic austerity, exploring its connection with poetics, live art, and embodied politics. The concerns driving the “I Can’t Breathe” debates around race, discrimination, and violence have been left unconfronted for far too long. At the same time, the countless social injustices, and the politics of disposability that the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare expose the delusions of a post-racial society, as well as the deprivation of the universal right to breathe (see Achille Mbembe). The topic of breathability that the exhibition identifies and aims to historicize also provides an insight into the ongoing revaluation of criminal justice reform.

Participating Artists:

Chloe Akrithaki, Tonia Andrioti, Elaine Angelopoulos, Antonakis, Yota Argyropoulou / Michalis Konstantatos (Blindspot Theater Group), Christos Athanasiadis, Manolis Baboussis, Evangelia Basdekis, Rania Bellou, Abdelkader Benchamma, Emmanuel Bitsakis, Aggeliki Bozou, Christina Calbari, Lizzie Calligas, Rafika Chawishe, Thalia Chioti, Mat Chivers, Katerina Christidi, Dionisis Christofilogiannis, Lydia Dambassina, SeeVa Kitslis Dawne, Martha Dimitropoulou, Christophoros Doulgeris, Jessica Feldman & Steven Gertner, Dimitris Foutris, Mona Gamil, Maria Georgoula, Eleni Glinou, Nella Golanda, Kyriaki Goni, Delia Gonzalez, Efi Haliori, Zoe Hounta, The Callas (Lakis & Aris Ionas), Elias Kafouros, Eleni Kamma, Athanassios Kanakis, Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, Irini Karayiannopoulou, Ismini Karyotaki, Zoe Keramea, Aspassia Kouzoupi, Karolina Krasouli, Sia Kyriakakos, Dimitris Lamprou, James Lane, Anna Lascari, Jenny Marketou, Jannis Markopoulos, Yolanda Markopoulou (Mind the Fact), Eleanna Martinou, Despina Meimaroglou, Maro Michalakakos, Fryni Mouzakitou, Anna Muchin, Eleni Mylonas, Margarita Myrogianni, Mariela Nestora, John Newsom, Alice Palaska, Maria Papadimitriou, Nikos Papadopoulos, Natasha Papadopoulou, Euripides Papadopetrakis, Ilias Papailiakis, Elli Papakonstantinou (ODC Ensemble), Tereza Papamichali, Kostas Pappas, Eftihis Patsourakis, Helene Pavlopoulou, Anastasia Pelias, Elena Penga, Antonis Pittas, Tula Plumi, Artemis Potamianou, Marina Provatidou, Mantalina Psoma, Irene Ragusini, Nana Sachini, Georgia Sagri, Martha Sakellariou, George Sampsonidis, Katerina Sarra, Martin Sexton, Christina Sgouromiti, Vouvoula Skoura, Evangelia Spiliopoulou, Danae Stratou, Stefania Strouza, Vassiliea Stylianidou (aka Franck-Lee Alli-Tis), Maria Tsagkari, Antonis Tsakiris, Giorgos Tserionis, Filippos Tsitsopoulos, Nana Varveropoulou, Alexis Vasilikos, VASKOS (Vassilis Noulas & Kostas Tzimoulis), Nikolas Ventourakis, Eugenia Vereli, Vassilis Vlastaras, Panagiotis Vorrias, Maro Zacharogianire, Katerina Zacharopoulou, Theodoros Zafeiropoulos, Eleni Theodora Zaharopoulos, Lilia Ziamou, and Dimitris Zouroudis.

/Video: The Right To Breathe /Gallery-1

IMPORTANT: To navigate between the eight galleries for this exhibition please find the + (plus sign) within the left menu. This is found after the exhibition introduction, after you enter the gallery, and after the controls are introduced. You can explore any of the galleries within this drop down menu.

/ / / / /

The exhibition at undercurrent.nyc is in dialogue with The Right to Silence? at Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay School of Criminal Justice (CUNY). Drawing from the 5th Amendment Right, the exhibition features pieces by visual and performing artists that attempt to uncover the profound and complex sense of silence that characterizes the prison industrial complex. The pieces investigate whether art and aesthetics can break the silence about crucial political issues such as mass incarceration and criminal justice reform.

Participating Artists:

Maria Antelman, Stephen Antonakos, Klitsa Antoniou, Kenji Aoki, Margarita Athanassiou, Bill Balaskas, Margarita Bofiliou, Veronique Bourgoin, Nicos Charalampidis, Cleopatra Charitou, Gioula Chatzigeorgiou, Despina Chatzipavlidou & Anthi Mouriadou, Tim D’Agostino, Christina Dimitriadi, Giorgos Drivas, Nayia Frangouli, Karen Finley, Alexandros Georgiou, Andrea Geyer & Sharon Hayes, Klio Gizeli,  Eva Giannakopoulou, Marion Inglessi, Dionysis Kavallieratos, Peggy Kliafa, Panos Kokkinias, Georgia Kotretsos, Aristeidis Lappas, Manolis Lemos-Daskalakis, Irini Linardaki, Aristeidis Logothetis, Olga Miliaresi – Foka & Despina Damaskou for SPAGHETTO , Giorgos Papafigos, Hara Piperidou, Vassilis Salpistis, Panos Sklavenitis, Efi Spyrou, Marilia Stagkouraki, Giorgos Stamatakis, Panos Tsagaris, Chrysanne Stathakos, Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Steve C. Harvey, Ashley Hunt, Richard Kamler, Renee Magnati, Ilan Manouach, Daina Mattis, Juli Susin, Mischa Twitchin, Lydia Venieri, Vangelis Vlachos, Antonis Volanakis, and Mary Zygouri.

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Invocations: Retracing Seneca at Seneca Village Central Park 

Complementing the The Right to Silence? Invocations: Retracing Seneca is a participatory walk that took place on the 14th of May 2021, paying homage to Seneca Village, conceived by artists Kimiyo Bremer and Karen Finley and curated by Sozita Goudouna. Seneca Village was a community made up of some 300 people. A majority of Seneca Village was composed of African American residents, many of which owned their own homes. Seneca was also populated by Irish and German immigrants who they lived together with as neighbors. The community was prosperous housing 3 churches, a school, a garden, many streets and a center. From 1853-1857, the city used eminent domain and police force to destroy and brutally demolish Seneca Village for the development of Central Park. The planned landscape of Central Park would create some of the most expensive real estate in the world, all of which we see today. The Seneca residents were forced to disperse with little archives maintained by the city to preserve this remarkable hamlet from the pre-civil war era. In our walk we will invoke ritual and retrace steps while offering recognition of these historic New Yorkers. We welcome you to conjure remembrance and sing spirit together, offer fellowship; to proclaim and honor as our way of giving respect.

The projects take place in the context of GREECE IN USA.

GREECE IN USA is a New York City-based organization that promotes Greek culture in the U.S. Founded by Dr. Sozita Goudouna, GREECE IN USA is launched under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture, with the group exhibition The Right to Silence? on the reform of criminal justice. The first iteration is presented at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) until July 31, 2021, with the participation of 43 Greek and Cypriot artists, while the second parallel program was launched in May 14, 2021, at Seneca Village and at undercurrent.nyc  with the group exhibition The Right to Breathe with the participation of 100 Greek artists. 

/ / / / /

Curation: Dr. Sozita Goudouna

Production: GREECE IN USA

Production Associate: Eva Kostopoulou

Greece in USA Associates: Odette Kouzou & Antigoni Papadopoulou

Partnering Non-Profit: 

Out of the Box Intermedia was founded in 2008 in London and Athens and produces projects with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Tourism, the European Cultural Foundation, the British Council, the French Institute, NEON Foundation and the Onassis Foundation.

Under the Auspices: Greek Ministry of Culture

06.11–07.25 /2021

Opening Reception: June 11, 4–8pm

Gallery Hours: Thur /Fri /Sat /Sun, 1–7pm

Undercurrent is pleased to announce Nick Fagan’s first New York solo show, The Moving Spirit or An Appreciation of Labor. According to the artist, his work is a material reaction to his experiences with mental health, disability, religion, and labor. The result is wide-spanning, unexpected, serious, and funny; it creates a tornado-style penetrating path not only into the artist’s mind but also slices through contemporary obsessions such as banality, spirituality, abstraction of language and symbols, formal hermeticism, openness, playfulness, ritual and transformation, class and religion, sexuality and synthetic duality of masculinity in particular.

A unifying single physical element in this show is the used mover’s blanket. In the artist’s vision, the simple everyday object is elevated into a piece of art as in the Cinderella fairy tale, without losing its humble blue-collar origins. The blankets come in different colors and some variations can be found in their patterns, but apart from that, they are pretty much the same standardized industrial products, without individuality. However, as used moving blankets, physical traces of sweat, stain, and tears suggest spiritual transformation similar to the shroud of Turin, from trashy to the divine.

The Moving Spirit or An Appreciation of Labor consists of eleven wall pieces. The main gallery presents seven large tapestries; the definition is preferred by the artist for pictorial and spiritual reasons and allusions. European tapestries were objectified paintings, simultaneously expensive time-consuming multi-team decorative productions similar to Persian carpets, but depicting important events of the day comparable to Pixar / animated films of today. Nick Fagan’s tapestries are visually abstract, but they are not passive decorations-they are almost aggressions. They have the aura and importance of mythological grand themes of the renaissance and baroque. The feeling is eerily similar to Abstract Expressionism’s choice of existential themes interspersed with funky Dadaist echos as tiny devils gliding and viciously squirming around the artist in the inner sanctum previously occupied by myth paintings. His work is grounded in drawing practices and in sculptural processes of subtraction and addition, and fondness of found objects with already embedded spirit.   

The largest work, Vessel and Eucharist, is placed on the floor. As the title implies, it encapsulates the spirit of this show and transforms the space into the mental ritual ground. In the context of Undercurrent’s basement, the location can be an allusion to roman catacombs and invokes the mystery of cave temples. The other tapestries echo and reinforce the main theme:

Gilded Break

The Workers Dilemma

Wave

Gilded Union

Employment Data

Phallic

Fagan’s large tapestries are ambitious creations sewn from many used moving blankets and visually can appear similar to traditional quilts. But the heroic masculinity-induced contradictions don’t connect with the community and tradition-based quilt circles. The materials that Fagan uses to create his works are essentially devoid of the character prior to use, but their accrued history - evocative of heavy lifting - is evidenced through their wear and tear. 

The size and verticality of Fagan’s tapestries evoke the royal and majestic; although his work tips its hat to figurative master narratives and pattern, it upends tapestry’s grandiose manner in its use of cartoon-like flaccid shapes.

Several other pieces in the show are similar in content: 

Germs

Beyond Surface

Community Breakdown

Modernism

but they are not tapestries. They are different combinations of shaped panels; in this case, the used moving blankets are stretched in place of canvas, supplanting the art they usually protect.  

Beyond the physical boundaries, The Moving Spirit or An Appreciation of Labor creates a new world, and a common history is revealed to the larger public through the artist’s use of personal history.

Julius Ludavicius
/Co-Director

/EXHIBITION MAP -> Please click on an image to navigate the map

PROMO IMAGE: Rosary and Gilded Union. Nick Fagan’s studio in Richmond, Virginia.

IMAGE I: The Workers Dilemma, 2020. 88 x 106 x 0.5 inches. Hand sewn used moving blankets

IMAGE II: Vessel and Eucharist, 2020. 89.9 x 135 x 0.5 inches. Hand sewn used moving blankets

IMAGE III: Exhibition map by Laura Zaveckaite

04.23 –06.06 /2021

Opening reception: April 23, 4–8pm

Gallery Hours: Thur /Fri /Sat /Sun, 1–7pm

Undercurrent is pleased to present Meghan Cox’s first New York solo exhibition, Hours and Hours, comprised of twenty-three small, elegant oil paintings. The work was created during 2020 to early 2021, in Cox’s meticulous representational style. As the exhibition title suggests, the work is about time and space; in this case perhaps about the complex investment of time in the process of creating a pictorial illusion. 

Each painting is a physical documentation representing the days or sometimes months of work to achieve closure for its specific visual idea. The paintings are a complex result of multiple reworked or wiped and disappeared “unconscious” layers of paint, which represent the artist’s desire to achieve a balance of image, form, line, detail, and color. Cox almost exclusively paints from life – what is in front of her – without the intervention of digital media. In a sense, the artist transfers the intimacy of the “artist’s gaze” to the viewer. When much of representational painting being made today relies on the convenient use of mechanical/digital reproductions to apprehend detail and inspiration, Cox’s practice can be seen as eerily reminiscent of the nineteenth-century movements of the Barbizon school, Impressionists, and plein air painting, which were responses to current academic and commercial aesthetics, and paradoxically forged the way for movements that morphed into abstraction.

Hours and Hours consists of two groups of paintings: a main-group and a smaller introductory-group. The smaller group consists of eight square oil paintings on wood panels. Roughly 8 to 12 inches in size; these relate more to the artist’s previous works, especially the two figurative panels. Meghan Cox’s representation of people can be seen as dreamy and immobile; dormant to time, entrapped by a moment of Déjà vu, a moment already seen and an other worldly experience. A typical example is that day i went to wawa, which is seen from above with a tote bag placed on the figure’s chest. In that day i went to school, the subject points a laser at an educational poster depicting different varieties of trees. This painting is reminiscent of Dutch genre paintings in the use of light, color, and composition, but also in how they mixed “serious moral” content with slight irony. The question arises:  is the figure a student, a teacher, or just a wanderer playing with the gadget? A viewer becomes engaged in creating their own narrative. The rest of the introductory-group is composed of still-lifes and acts as a prelude for the main-group of complementary paintings. In the center of these still-lifes is the depiction of a white porcelain cup with mushrooms or almonds nestled within a busy pattern engrossing the picture plane. This pensive moment, a white vessel, denies the noise and retains our attention, becoming a symbol of stability, a simple comfort, sustenance.

The main-group has fifteen vertical oil paintings on paper mounted on plywood, 14 by 12 inches in size. They have an unusual and important compositional element uniting them all: a 9-inch still-life square located on the white ground in the upper part of the panel. According to the artist, the inspiration for this compositional format came from large art books and how painting reproductions are represented on the page. This compositional element creates a trompe l’oeil effect: the still life can be interpreted not as the painting, but as the depiction of the reproduction of the painting. These reproductions have optical illusions contained within the optical illusion. Arabesque patterns create a dizzying mirage as in some string theorist’s imagination. Skillful play between flatness, illusion, an illusion of an illusion, and an illusion of flatness can be compared with math formulas; science and fabrication; presence and absence. These panels of still-lifes are composed in a classical triangle-pyramid style from various patterned paper cutouts on a dark background, this could be interpreted as an exercise in the formalist tradition, which makes each work abstract, and formal as a whole. The compositions feel precarious, as real and imaginary shadows are interspersed throughout the space. Among these there are three paintings, each of them representing a section of a window. Through each window, a different time of day is seen: one in the day, another at night, and one at twilight. The window images allude to the cyclical nature of time and the ephemeral qualities of light and dark.

Cox’s mastery of embracing the full spectrum of her medium amplifies our temporal experience. Her ability to portray a laser sharp moment next to the blurriness experienced after a long slumber defies time. She collapses tonal colors with her brilliant spectrum of fully saturated hues into one image, titillating time and space, turning seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, and hours to days. Reaching beyond the works Meghan chose to paint a portion of the gallery walls with color. This shift extends the small paintings into electric color fields, radiating her pensive focus beyond the picture plane of their surfaces into the skin of our daily lives. Hours and Hours is a contemplation on reality. Meghan Cox's work becomes one of ritual, repetition, and transcendence, strung together like a meditation bracelet of beads. 

Altogether, the titles flow in a rhythmic pattern, similar to that of a poem, or chant...

that day and yellow 

that late afternoon and lilac 

that early evening and orange 

that morning and grape 

that day i saw flowers at night 

that morning and purple 

that day i saw winter citrus 

that morning and peach 

that day and other painters 

that day and mint 

that morning and peach and mauve 

that late day and bluegreenyellow 

Julius Ludavicius
/Co-Director

/Press Release PDF HERE

TO NAVIGATE THE EXHIBITION, PLEASE CLICK ON THE GALLERY MAP HERE

PROMO IMAGE: Installation view at Undercurrent

IMAGE I: that early evening and orange, oil on paper over birch panel, 14"x12”

IMAGE II: that day i went to wawa, oil on paper over birch panel, 14"x12”

IMAGE III: Exhibition map by Laura Zaveckaite

IMAGE IV: Installation view at Undercurrent

03.12–04.18 /2021

Reception: March 12, 4–8pm

Gallery Hours: Thur /Fri /Sat /Sun, 1–7pm

Undercurrent is pleased to present Ryan Cosbert’s New York solo debut, I Am What I Am, on view from March 12 – April 18. I Am What I Am features paintings that scaffold experience, symbolism, and the African diaspora to confront trauma, under-/misrepresented histories, and the subjugation of Black communities, forging a socio-political consciousness within abstract painting.

Cosbert’s color choices, gestures, materials, and her integration of chance become supreme signifiers within her work. A child of Black migrants from Guyana and Haiti, she pays homage to her parents' homelands with two modest circular paintings, Georgetown and Port-au-Prince. Each uses the color palette of the nation's respective flags—yellow, red, and green for Guyana and blue and red for Haiti—to honor the birthplaces of her mother and father, respectively. As circles, the works both highlight the global scope of the African diaspora while also affirming how each descendant's story remains unique, impacted by an amalgamation of time, geography, and experience. Tiling, a signature of Cosbert’s work, is seen in these round paintings; a practice of gridding the painting’s surface prior to building up a haptic material surface using a variety of sand, gesso, pigment, enamel, dye, and acrylic. While a checkered pattern has ubiquitous associations, Cosbert connects it to her childhood and her mother’s kitchen floor, referencing domestic patterns of repetition and habit, creating order and balance where chaos easily coexists. Often, the works are embedded with objects or artifacts, retired from utility and redefined within the tiling of her paintings. Examples include old newspaper clippings, emptied bullet casings, and cowrie seashells, which have been used within West African cultures as adornment, dice, and currency.

Currency of the Ocean, a large work at 120 x 52 inches, shares the historical trajectory of cowrie shells. They float, in groups of three, delicately implanted upon a tumultuous surface of tiling, smudging, and frenetic gestural marks in a horizontal line that sharply cuts across the middle of the painting, a buoyancy of perseverance. Echoed in these shells is a culture and the enslaved Africans that were traded across the Atlantic. On the other spectrum of Cosbert’s paintings is an observance of lesser known histories of civil rights leaders and the dissemination of African culture. This is seen in works such as Ode to Claudette Colvin, one of the many antecessors to Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat nine months prior to Parks.

Murder Mayhem no 1, 2, 3, is a single work in three 46 x 46 inch pieces. From left to right, each block is tiled and pigmented in red, white, and blue with physical bullets lodged within the tactile surfaces. Cosbert appropriates the same action of throwing cowrie shells, used as dice in games, to the bullet casings strewn across the surface of the paintings, leaving chance to decide where the bullet shells land. Visible in Murder Mayhem no. 1, 2, 3 is the immanent violence in America’s cultural identity of red, white and blue. The trauma marginalized people experience within the U.S. raises alternative meanings to these three colors; where many Americans identify the Stars and Stripes, today many see police sirens. Stuck to the surface, objects atypical to painting now share the same history. Although Cosbert does not regard this piece as a triptych (art historically, triptychs are traditionally seen in altarpieces) there is an innate homage to the victims of police brutality. These three color-field blocks become an overwhelming graphic representation. Engaging all of our senses, we become deaf to the sirens heard time over time, leaving us with an alternative consciousness of the colors, red, white, and blue.

Lastly, Cosbert's painting entitled, Only difference between you and me is that you were brought here by force grabs the viewer from just the title alone. Cosbert indicates that, despite centuries of whiggish fantasies of progress toward equality and justice, the exploitation, subjugation, violence, and inequality Americans have inflicted upon the African Diaspora in the U.S. remain as central to the Black experience as they have ever been. The work in I Am What I Am draws candid connections from different times and different places compounding them into the same continuum of the narratives of the African diaspora. Ryan Cosbert takes the seemingly minimal and empowers our collective unconscious to bring new sight to our old-world vision.

Daina Mattis /Co-director

/Press Release PDF HERE

To navigate the exhibition, please click on the gallery map HERE

IMAGE I: Port-au-Prince, 2021. Acrylic on canvas 23”

IMAGE II: Georgetown, 2021. Acrylic on canvas 23”

IMAGE III: Exhibition map by Laura Zaveckaite

UN/MUTE /10002

02.12 – 05.09 /2021

Join us February 12, 1pm EST to launch our project

UN/MUTE /10002 on facebook.com/undercurrent.nyc

and please follow the project at: unmute.nyc

Creating a fair and equitable space after COVID shuttered artists from residencies, travel, studio visits, exhibitions, and physical networking, UN/MUTE is an online residency that provides artists an opportunity for a critical exchange and collaboration while simultaneously connecting resources from the global cultural epicenter of New York City. This project is co-organized by Undercurrent and the European Union National Institutes for Culture’s New York Cluster. It will go live on unmute.nyc on February 12, 2021, in concurrence with the Lunar New Year, and will continue through May 9th, celebrating Europe Day. 

The online world that has emerged in response to the pandemic reshapes our definition of social contact, obscures our private and public environments, and circumscribes the evolution of communication. UN/MUTE-10002 follows the narratives of ten European artists who have never visited New York City and ten NYC-based artists, paired into  teams of two, one European with one New Yorker. Additionally, one artist is a digital immigrant, born before 1986, and the other is a digital native, born into the world of web browsers and email, after 1986. Over a series of Zoom sessions, each team’s collective creative process will unfold in a series of video recordings.

Language serves as the first cultural indicator of change. At constant risk of complete extermination, the Amazon is now more recognized as an online shopping platform than one of our planet’s richest natural resources. We stream video content into our living rooms while drinking bottled water branded with pictures of mountain springs, and our most priceless memories are hidden away in a cloud. We sit a virtual world apart from each other – far more than the recommended six feet – obscuring the socioeconomic divisions of race, color, national origin, gender identification, sexual orientation, religion, and age. The present state of being often sounds more like mythology or folklore than reality. 

As the internet conditions our lifestyle, we aim to find new normalcy amidst a shortage of vaccines, new virus strains, unsettling unemployment rates, and a Western world trying to mitigate racism and xenophobia during a delicate sociopolitical epoch. Regardless of our facility with digital technologies, how do we progress without compromising the past? How can we learn from each other’s individual histories and experiences? Embodying inclusion, multilingualism, and digitalization, UN/MUTE provides an opportunity for two transatlantic strangers to collaborate on a singular project for a sustainable future. 

Participating artists include: Eren Aksu (Germany), Aaron Bezzina (Malta), Will Calhoun (NYC), Sanne De Wilde (Flanders, Belgium), FOQL (Poland), Gabrielė Gervickaitė (Lithuania), Kris Grey (NYC), Sophie Guisset (Wallonia-Brussels, Belgium), Kyle Hittmeier (NYC), Mo Kong (NYC), Yi Hsuan Lai (NYC), H. Lan Thao Lam (NYC), Marie Lukáčová (Czech Republic), Olesja Katšanovskaja–Münd (Estonia), Sheila Maldonado (NYC), Barbara Maria Neu (Austria), Emmanuel Massillon (NYC), Alex Mirutziu (Romania), Emily Shanahan (NYC), and Sydney Shavers (NYC). 

UN/MUTE-10002 is a project by EUNIC NY and Undercurrent, realized with financial support from EUNIC — European Union National Institutes for Culture — Europe’s network of national cultural institutes and organizations, with 36 members from all EU member states. This project was initiated by the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Consulate General of Estonia in New York and is co-organized by Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Wallonia-Brussels International in New York, Czech Center New York, Delegation of Flanders to the USA, Goethe-Institut New York, Arts Council Malta in New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York, Romanian Cultural Institute, the Hope Recycling Station, the Jindřich Chalupecký Society, and supported by the European Union Delegation to the United Nations.

/Press release PDF HERE

01.29–03.07 /2021

OPENING: Friday, January 29, 5–9 pm

Gallery hours: Thur /Fri /Sat /Sun, 1–7pm

Undercurrent is excited to launch our 2021 program with Connectivity, a solo exhibition by New York-based Icelandic artist Habby Osk. Grounded in sculpture, her work is an ideal segue from the imbalances of last year finding us a new foothold with the start of a new one. Connectivity will run from January 29 until March 7.

Osk’s post-minimalist work subtly evokes the current precarious political and unstable social situation both in this country and across the world. Introspectively, it calls attention to the ecological dangers of our planet’s existence. Growing up in Iceland, Osk experienced nature’s magnificent and severe beauty, in the presence of the powerful manifestations of natural phenomena such as sporadic weather, earthquakes, and other underground geological activity. Iceland’s relative proximity to the North Pole more acutely displays Earth’s cyclic relationship with the Sun, as the amount of sunlight throughout the seasons varies more than in most other parts of the world. For the last two decades, Osk echoed her connection to location and its gravitas beyond GPS coordinates. The forces of nature and civilization collide; they impact our lives.

Osk’s sculptural compositions use gravity as an invisible force. Her chosen medium provides content and meaning which goes beyond merely dictating the shape, size, choice of materials, and appearance of the work. The gravity philosophically anchors the sculptures. The connection between gravity and time provides the artist with the possibility of a theatrical ruse, a suspended element, the moment of hope and expectation, impermanence, surprise, inevitable collapse and destruction—all of these simultaneously.

At Undercurrent, Habby Osk presents eight works. In the entryway, Fracture spreads six pink-toned chromogenic prints documenting the process of a cement ball slowly crushing a blood-colored gelatin cube. The work appears less like a piece of art and more like the frame-by-frame documentation of a science experiment. Following it is Interconnection, a nine-foot-tall wall piece with three wax and hydrocal rectangular blocks hanging from a cylinder-shaped support. The semi-heavy blocks balancing each other are tethered by a bright yellow rope. Similar in spirit to Interconnection are three wall sculptures from Osk’s Anchor series: Anchor X, Anchor VII, and Anchor I. Part of a group of ten works, these precarious compositions are finely balanced cement casts on independent shelves. Inspired by DNA sequencing, Osk appropriates basic geometric shapes including a sphere, cube, rectangle, cylinder, triangle, and a line. A physical line is drawn between these shapes and their shelf using an ultramarine, violet-colored polypropylene cord. The line connects shapes, balances the composition, and creates tension.

The Anchor works, like most of the other artist’s sculptures, are always under stress. Each piece has the characteristic of a mechanical balancing point, a fulcrum, in contrast to an optical point, as in painting or traditional sculpture. If we look through a mathematical lens, we can interpret the point symbolically, representing either zero or infinity. Suspend, the largest piece in the show, is a free-standing, V-shaped composition made from two boards—one black, another bright blue. These boards are fastened by a yellow string and balanced by approximately 100 pounds of cement cast into a sphere. The brightly colored lines of cord parallel a colorfield painting and a clarity associated with hard-edge painting. The last two sculptures, Clasp I and Clasp II, are cast wax cubes and rectangles, shackled together by aluminum suspension springs, such as those most commonly used for self-closing heavy doors. Directly placed on the gallery floor, these relatively small works serve an important function in the show by creating spatial complexity between spectra: large and small, chromatic and achromatic, weight and balance. With so much gravity and tension loaded within each individual work, their totality creates a continuum, complementing one another and providing an experience of open space within the gallery.

Habby Osk teeters between the aesthetics of poetry and industrial machines, dear to minimalist sculpture, as almost romantically she creates a serenity centered on the axle of nature. Each work stands as a singular, independent work yet when seen as a whole, they create an ecosystem reliant on their inherent paradigm within Earth’s gravity well and the importance of our environmental balance.

Julius Ludavicius /Co-director

Press release PDF HERE

To navigate the exhibition, please click on the gallery map HERE

/IMAGE I: Anchor I, 2018. Concrete, Wood, Rope. 64 x 12 x 10 Inches

Image description: This precarious composition is a finely balanced cement cast suspended on an independent shelve. Triangle shaped cast is wrapped by a purple cord that at one end has a smaller cement anchor, which keep the shape in a 45 degree suspension.

/IMAGE II: Suspend, 2018. Wood, Concrete, Rope. 96 x 118 x 12 Inches

Image description: A free-standing, V-shaped composition made from two boards—one black, another bright blue. These boards are fastened by a yellow string and balanced by approximately 100 pounds of cement cast into a sphere.

/IMAGE III: Exhibition’s map by Laura Zaveckaite