Read an Interview of Holly Hendry on the Occasion of Her Exhibition @ SCAD Museum of Art for SCAD deFINE ART 2024 →

 

Holly Hendry, Her bones begin to bend, 2024. Image courtesy of SCAD.

 

Holly Hendry’s Watermarks, featured at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art through June 24, is a site-specific oasis which playfully investigates the way water runs through virtually every facet of human life. Situated outside the museum in glass vitrines overlooking Turner Boulevard, Hendry’s four sculptural pieces encounter the world in an unconventional way. The architectural display is situated in the community; students pass it every morning on their way to class. The significance behind the work in this context becomes ever-evolving, effortlessly aligning with the shifting elements of the everyday. Her edifices traverse intricate concepts that range from the expansiveness of architecture, societal conceptions of the female form, to the connectivity of bodies via water. Interestingly balancing the lightness of uplifting artistic figuration with the weight of impending doom as it relates to our not-at-all-ubiquitous freshwater supply, Hendry’s sculptural forms are dynamic manifestations of life on earth. Read more.

Watermarks is organized by SCAD Museum of Art chief curator Daniel S. Palmer with assistant curator Haley Clouser and presented as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2024.

Marie Larrivé Captures the Spirit of Natural Magnetism in La Lune et les Feux @ Galerie Miyu in Paris

 

text by Barbara Norton

 

In Marie Larrivé’s world, the light is soft and the air is tender. The French filmmaker and painter’s newest exhibition, La Lune et Les Feux, is no exception. On view at Galerie Miyu in Paris, Larrivé’s round, vibrant colors paint a world made up of all the floating, ethereal parts of ours. 

A reverberation of L’arrivé’s directorial history, much of La Lune et les Feux presents like a snapshot of a larger story, one that is both melancholy and joyful. The eerie stillness, particularly in the gentle sorrow of Jours étranges and fantastic greenery of Arbres Noirs, begs the question of what natural mysticism lurks behind the leaves and beneath the soil. The desire for the answer lends Larrivé’s works a magnetic quality—so close to the world we know, yet different. 

No matter the story, nature’s curves, slopes, and outstretched branches coolly take center stage. Humans are occasionally present, but a fleeting presence in Larrivé’s superlunar narrative. There is the distinct feeling that these people and these landscapes are shaping each other even when we, the viewers, are not looking. When we are looking, we are mere observers, pulled in only by the humanity of the moonlight and grasses. 

If Larrivé has a leading lady, she is certainly the water, an especially masterful constant throughout Larrivé’s œuvre. It is clear that Larrivé was born by the sea, in Brittany—the coy glint of sun on water in Saint Malo thrums with the expertise of an artist who fully understands its transient nature. Similarly, the soft brushstrokes and deep, blue-green water seem to conceal some larger, perhaps darker mystery beneath the water’s surface in Le Lac. Perhaps the mystery would reveal itself, if only you could step onto the mossy bank of the lake. More likely, it will remain an enigma to you, the watcher of Larrivé’s shadowy, enchanting scenes, no matter how much you may wish otherwise. 

La Lune et Les Feux is on view through September 13 at Galerie Miyu 101 Rue du Temple.




Naima Green Performs Rituals Of Intimacy In "A Sequence for Squeezing" @ Baxter St In New York

A Sequence for Squeezing is a solo show of lens-based work by 2021 Baxter St Workspace Resident Naima Green. Featuring new and recent photographs, as well as a recent video work, the exhibition continues Green’s practice of collaborating with her community to create intimate portraits and record personal scenes of play, exploration, and pleasure. Focusing on the experiences of Black, Brown, and Queer individuals, the exhibition builds on and expands the themes of Green’s previous work, exploring water as a site for pleasure and freedom, the sensuality of enjoying food, and the rituals of intimacy. 

On the back wall of the exhibition, a giant vinyl double-exposed image of the Rockaways serves as the  backdrop for Green’s video work The Intimacy of Before. The Rockaways — and water — are an important  reoccurring site in Green’s life and work, and water is featured across much of her new work, even if as a  subtle suggestion. At Baxter St, the Rockaways frame Green’s intimate video self-portrait, a sensual  exploration of self the artist shot in her apartment during the early days of the COVID pandemic. The audio  from the video, including the sounds of waves and Green’s own voice, becomes a soundtrack to the exhibition  as a whole, asking, as she does in the video, “Is it too much to want a tender and complete intimacy?” 

A Sequence for Squeezing is on view through July 23 at 126 Baxter St

Yuri Yuan Presents "The Great Swimmer" @ Make Room in Los Angeles

In the past year, Yuri Yuan has often dreamed about water. Sometimes she sees a sinking ship, sometimes in a quiet ocean. Often, she finds herself on a diving board, perched over a blue swimming pool. Yuan’s latest body of work is titled "The Great Swimmer" after Kafka’s fragment of the same title. These limpid canvases explore different aquatic landscapes, but they most often return to the landscape of the swimming pool, with its diving boards, tiles, and changing rooms. Yuan tapped into her memories of swimming lessons she took at age 13, having just moved to Singapore from China. These classes were a minefield of linguistic, bodily, and emotional alienation– not unlike the alienation expressed by Kafka’s swimmer.

"The Great Swimmer" marks a watershed moment in Yuan’s practice. Working in a consistently larger format, the works showcase the influence of cinematic narrative on the artist’s practice. Fascinated by the intricate visual constructions of filmmakers such as Wes Anderson and Wong Kar Wai, Yuan’s new works seek to understand the innate connections between narrative and aesthetics. "The Great Swimmer" also takes influence from the deep ultramarine palettes of the Italian Renaissance, as well as the figural masterwork of French Romantics such as Géricault. "The Great Swimmer" presents a narrative in two sets of fragments, hopping between visions of the internal and external, the literary and the cinematic, the real and the dream.

Yuri Yuan is on view now through February 12 at Make Room 5119 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles.

Opening Of 'Water & Power' Curated By Noah Davis @ The Underground Museum

Noah Davis’ fourth exhibition curated from MOCA’s permanent collection features four seminal artworks by Olafur Eliasson, Hans Haacke, James Turrell and Fred Eversley that use natural phenomena as sculptural material, along with a poem installation by LA’s Poet Laureate, Robin Coste Lewis. The show is a meditation. Water. Flow. Woman. Moon. Aqueducts. Flint. Light. Climate. “Seeing yourself seeing”. Power. Water & Power is on view at the Underground Museum 3508 W. Washington Boulevard Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock