Behind abstract forms

About

The exhibition in the new Fragment gallery space is devoted to abstraction in relation to healing from trauma, self-care, and the queer body. All of the presented paintings, objects, and photography go against figurative logic by uncovering space on the peripheries of the expected or the normative.

For many generations, queer artists have explored abstraction as an act of resistance—a strategy of survival. Through queerness, they are able to visualize a myriad of sexualities that are disconnected from a colonial point of view. For many, abstraction presents a choice regarding their own visibility, but most of them have chosen to fight against identity elimination through presenting it in all its possible forms. In their works, the undefined and undefinable finds expression without settling on any singular subjective meaning.

All the works in the show exude ambiguity, embracing new territories of the unknown. Forms of objects presented in the show stand in opposition to matter. Some works are made using a variety of chemical reactions. Others employ methods that produce unpredictable results—in many cases, guided also by chance and not only by the artist's hand. 

The works in the show do not represent particular things, but instead, generate encounters in order to engage the world. As writer and sculptor Gordon Hall—whose works can be seen in the show—stated in their article “Reading Things”, instead of thinking about artworks symbolically, metaphorically, representationally, or autobiographically, they should be viewed as possibilities for treating objects as teachers who might be able to assist us in developing different ways of understanding and experiencing our bodies. 

Artists: Jesse Darling, Hayden Dunham, Joy Episalla, Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Gordon Hall, Sheila Pepe, Ro Robertson, Shikeith, Wolfgang Tillmans, Richard Tinkler, Chiffon Thomas, Quay Quinn Wolf, Carrie Yamaoka

Curated by Alexander Shchurenkov