Frieze Day at Somers Gallery

About

Somers Gallery is presenting a solo show by Mexican artist Marcos Castro while  Elliot Dodd is creating an installation on the corner of Chalton St & Phoenix Rd. The opening night includes two unmissable performances by Brooklyn-based artist, the Narcissister and by Hollie Miller from London.

ARTISTS:

Marcos Castro.

Marcos Castro.  Mexico City, 1981.

Castro creates mythical narratives inspired by the rich and vast visual representations found in historical Mexican art and contemporary culture.  He portrays and puts into action mythical, historical and popular  figures seen in Mexico in buildings, ruins, sculptures, murals, paintings, ceramics, codexes, books and everyday visual representations.

Castro’s practice includes drawing, painting, ceramic, sculpture, installation and other forms of art. Very often he displays a single picture from where he expands  dynamic and dramatic stories on walls and other parts of buildings.

Castro lives and works in Mexico City.  He is also a founding member and co-director of the cultural space Obrera Centro. His work belongs to the following collections: Fundación JUMEX Collection, Museum of Modern Art, University Museum of Contemporary Art and Fundación Alumnos 47; in Puebla at the Museo Amparo, and in the United States it is part of the Perez Art Museum and Patricia Phelps de Cisneros collections.

Narcissister.

Narcissister is a Brooklyn-based artist and performer. Wearing mask and merkin, she works at the intersection of contemporary dance, visual art, and activism. She actively integrates her prior experience as a professional dancer and commercial artist with her art practice in a range of media including live performance, collage, sculpture, video, film, and experimental music. She has presented work worldwide at festivals, nightclubs, museums, and galleries. Her art video “Vaseline” won Best Use of a Sex Toy at The Good Vibrations Erotic Film Festival. In 2013 she received a Bessie Award nomination for the theatrical performance of “Organ Player” and in 2015 she received Creative Capital and United States Artists Awards. Interested in troubling the popular entertainment and experimental art divide, she appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2011. Her first feature film “Narcissister Organ Player” premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2018; the European premiere was at the Locarno International Film Festival. Also in 2018 she had a solo exhibition at Participant Inc. gallery in New York. She is a Sundance Theatre Lab 2018 Fellow for the development of a new evening length performance commissioned by the Soho Rep in New York. She was nominated for the ArtPace Residency in San Antonio, Texas in Summer 2019 and her activist short art film "Narcissister Breast Work" premiered at Sundance 2020.

Elliot Dodd.

Elliot Dodd (B. 1978 Jersey, Channel Islands).

Dodd studied at the Royal Academy Schools, London 2013–16. Previously he completed his BA at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL London 1998-2002.

His practice makes use of numerous different artistic mediums and approaches in response to the complexity and absurdity of consumerism, and to question situations of masculine control and domination within society, particularly a male-orientated quest for expression of supreme confidence. With reference points in politics, design, economics and technology, the work takes the form of caricature, allowing ideas and objects to be humiliated, deformed or celebrated.

Recent exhibitions include: "Panax-Grab", MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, 2018; "Flickering Boundaries", MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, 2018; "Temporary Realities", Karen Huber Gallery, Mexico City, 2018; "Steps to Aeration", Tanya Leighton, Berlin, 2017; "The Manbody", Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2017; "Virtually Real", collaboration with HTC, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2017; "SUNDAY Art Fair solo presentation", London, 2016; "Event Horizon", Gabriel Rolt Gallery, Amsterdam, 2014; "Switch", Baltic, Gateshead, 2012.

Hollie Miller

Hollie Miller is a visual artist with an interdisciplinary practice that spans performance, moving image, photography, sculpture and installation. Using her body as her primary medium, she often creates site responsive, intimate and time-based works. She describes her body as an ‘activated and politicized site’, a means to transform the subconscious into visual imagery using emotionally charged materials.

In her works, Miller repeatedly deals with the state of becoming and transformation through rebirth, metamorphosis, shape shifting, embryology and chrysalis imagery. She performs in front of live audiences as well as isolated in remote locations, documenting her actions with a camera. The photographic documentation of her ephemeral actions crystallizes these living images suggesting that they never fully cease. In a similar manner, objects and material traces that remain in the aftermath of her performances are viewed as artifacts that permeate the space, and haunt the audience with their presence.

Sound plays an important role in Miller’s work, enhancing the intensity of her imagery. She regularly collaborates with musician Craig Scott, who scores her films and also performs with her live. They have recently extended their collaboration by co-developing a wearable instrument that produces electronic sounds in response movement.