Bortolami Gallery is pleased to present Springweather and people, a group exhibition including ten artists whose work highlight different directions in assemblage.
Cross generational in approach, and underscoring a diversity of materials that are stitched, crimped, nailed, and pasted together, both sculptural and painted, the exhibition follows the wide array of methods and techniques for layering. Retooling the term first put to use in the 1960s as an important innovation in abstraction, the exhibition offers a contemporary vantage for artworks which take on the impulse of gathering. The title of the exhibition, borrowed from a 1955 Merce Cunningham piece costumed by Robert Rauschenberg, pays homage to the first generation of assemblage artists for whom the term was coined. The artists gathered in the exhibition continue to investigate the formal tenets set forth over half a century ago, enriching this field with today's socio-political concerns.
Natalie Ball (b. 1980 in Oregon) Lives and works in Chiloquin, Oregon. This year she was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Bonnie Bronson Visual Arts fellowships. Selected exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the Rubell Museum, Miami, 2020; In Practice: Other Objects, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY in 2019; Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Snake, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA in 2019; Sites of Memory, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA in 2021; and Portland Biennial 2019, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland, OR in 2019.
Willie Cole (b. 1955 in Somerville, NJ) Lives and works in Mine Hill, NJ. Selected exhibitions include Willie Cole: Beauties, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA in 2019; Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY in 2016; Represent: 200 Years of African American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA in 2015; and Draped Down, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY in 2014.
Awol Erizku (b. 1988 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY. Selected exhibitions include Awol Erizku: New Visions for Iris, Public Art Fund, New York, NY & Chicago, IL in 2021; Mystic Parallax, The FLAG Foundation, New York, NY in 2020; Believe, curated by David Liss, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, ON in 2018; and Serendipity, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY in 2015.
Brian Jungen (b. 1970 in Fort St. John, BC) Lives and works in North Okanagan, BC. Selected exhibitions include Brian Jungen Friendship Centre, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON in 2019; Beautiful world, where are you?, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK in 2018; The Grand Balcony, La Biennale de Montréal, Montreal, QC in 2016; And Level 2 Gallery, Tate Modern, London, UK in 2006.
Daniel Lind-Ramos (b. 1953 in Loíza, Puerto Rico) Lives and works in Puerto Rico. Selected exhibitions include 100 Drawing From Now, The Drawing Center, New York, NY in 2020; Whitney Biennial 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY in 2019; and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico: 'PUERTO RICO PLURAL', San Juan, PR, in 2019.
Eric N. Mack (b. 1987 in Columbia, MD) Lives and works in New York, NY. Selected exhibitions include Lemme walk across the room, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, FL forthcoming in 2021 and Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY in 2019; In austerity, stripped from its support and worn as a sarong, The Power Station, Dallas, TX in 2019; Whitney Biennial 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY in 2019; and Greater New York, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY in 2015.
Kori Newkirk (b. 1970 in the Bronx, NY) Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Selected exhibitions include Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA in 2019; Belonging, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA in 2019; Harlem Postcards: Wish You Were Here, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY in 2018; and Kori Newkirk: 1997-2007, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, CA in 2008/2009.
Sojourner Truth Parsons (b. 1984 in Vancouver, BC) Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Selected exhibitions include This is America, Curated by Mike Gessner, Kunstraum Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany in 2021; L’invitation au voyage, Esther Schipper, Berlin, Germany in 2021; Sex and Love with a Psychologist, Foxy Production, New York in 2020; and Holding Your Dog At Night, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario in 2017.
Gala Porras-Kim (b. 1984 in Bogotá, Columbia) Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Selected exhibitions include The Space Between Classrooms, Swiss Institute, New York, NY in 2020; Open House: Gala Porras- Kim, MOCA, Los Angeles, CA in 2019; Whitney Biennial 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY in 2019; and Out of place: A feminist look at the collection, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY in 2019.
Eric Wesley (b. 1973 in Los Angeles, California) Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Selected exhibitions include Searching the Sky for Rain, curated by Sohrab Mohebbi, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY in 2019; Dirty Protest: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA in 2019; Made In L.A.: A Public Fiction, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA in 2014; and MOCA FOCUS: Eric Wesley, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA in 2006.
