Our Anxious Times

Our Anxious Times presents works by artists whose various practices tackle issues that are currently at the forefront of our collective conscience. From the Donald Trump election, to Standing Rock and from Black Lives Matter to the Women’s March on Washington, the artists presented here view the body—the physical body—as a battleground where complicated issues play out. The works here all go beyond the surface; each artist has invested his or her own body into the production of the work whether as subject, through performance, or by location.

In Sujeto by Carlos Martiel, the artist seems to have washed up on the shores of Cuba yet he is painfully connected to the land mass even as he today lives in the United States. Photographer Ventiko shoots a self portrait where she channels Ana Mendieta and Velázquez’s the Rokeby Venus. She proves the woman artist’s power to control her own image and challenge gender roles. Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow’s fabric hose depicts a man-made tool used to draw and spill, if you will, the earth’s natural resource, water. For a performance, the artist squeezes her own body into the hose. Kevin Darmanie’s selfie watercolors are of and composed by Luma the model who then texts them to the artist. The artist then renders the photos, becoming a type of filter. The work raises issues of authorship, over-sharing, and the qualities of watercolor to photography.