Peres Projects presents, what fruit it bears, an exhibition project presenting work by artists whose practices are radically individual, defying categorization, and yet together represent our time. We find ourselves undulating between an inward looking, defining of individuality through multi-faceted identity, and an unprecedented consciousness of the collective. Besides reinforcing the gallery’s original mission to nimbly respond to, activate and highlight practices from around the world, this exhibition presents approaches to figuration which seek equilibrium in understanding both ourselves and our collective path forward.
Many of these works were made this year and respond to the tumult that we’ve experienced globally. As we emerge from isolation, this presentation proposes a future in which personal identity is both celebrated and supported by a renewed appreciation for community and solidarity.
The selected works explore the force of the un-utterable and the variances in what we do not have language to express. Employing diverse languages of figuration, text and abstraction, the artists presented expose the body, skin and landscape as contested sites, located across both natural and cultural categories. Using the body as a departure point to think about vulnerability, the individual, community and society, these works map the figure as a projection of inner life, of cultural and social experience to express identity and the many ways that it is constructed.
We propose a move towards optimism, putting forward a belief in the importance of aesthetic works in our social process of world building. The works demonstrate how artists have been responding to the intersection of identity and community, forging ahead towards a future of honoring nature, mutual respect and interconnectivity.
Xinyi Cheng
Dalton Gata
Nicholas Grafia
Hugh Hayden
Stanislava Kovalcikova
Vojtech Kovarik
Emily Ludwig Shaffer
Eric N. Mack
Shota Nakamura
Marc Padeu
Paulo Nimer Pjota
David Rappeneau
Mostafa Sarabi
Special thanks: Galerie Balice Hertling, Galerie PACT, Jack Bell Gallery, Mendes Wood DM, Morán Morán, LISSON Gallery, Galería Agustina Ferreyra, and Queer Thoughts
