social geographies (sept 15 - october 20, 2024)
KUNSTRAUM LLC is pleased to present social geographies, an exhibition of paintings, drawings, screen printed and sewn textiles, sculptural works, photographs, and videos by fourteen selected artists from KUNSTRAUM’s residency program and community of artists. The show is a continuation of dialogue on the backdrop of constructed narratives and their disparity in myriad forms. The artworks portray the tangible, emotional, historic, and technological manifestations of current social realities, sovereign places, as they come to the fore of discussion. In tandem they stage disruptions to our perspectives of social geographies as well as desires and poetic mappings of them.
social geographies is a take on the Letterist International’s, and later Situationist International’s, psychogeography, which is a concept meant to break down the dichotomy of culture and life through psychological querying of the built environment. This was mainly done by personal navigations through constructed urban spaces. The practice of drifting, or of wandering on an unplanned journey, was a key component of their work and offers a mode of moving beyond confined boundaries. The imperative was to flee false consciousness and alienation brought about by capitalism. Further, this exhibition is inspired by the many ways of glitching and how they may subvert the contextual reality of drawn lines. Perhaps we must see how viruses, errors, and refusals – divergences – can introduce new ways of embracing.
In bringing together psychogeography and a decolonial turn, articulating an identity beyond the body becomes an option as borders outside the bounds of hegemonic histories can be created. Interpersonal connections are favored instead of profit or gain just as arbitrary routes without destination, motivation, or purpose occur. An example is Erika Choe’s Ghost of my shell (2024) as a sort of homage to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, a representation of the material and formal reality of a porous skin sac begs the questions, can we leave our bodies behind? Can my body leak into yours? The tender work taps into the desire of the artist to defy the impoverished barrier of the human body and real delineated borders to permeate into other beings. Even though technology has led to hyperconnectivity of the globe through the internet as we know it today, our human desires to connect grow even deeper than reality or virtuality allow.
As well, the in between places present themselves through cracks and misalignments, through distorted views and unpleasant scenes. Viviane Roi’s In a Wildfire Unobserved (2024) makes comparisons between fragmented scenes that posit the real and digital worlds are not reflections of one another, disrupting the audience’s ritualized admiration of online viewing. The atrocity of war is alluded to in Bourne (2023) by Daniel McKleinfeld where he has collaged images of nationalistic regimes with abstract computer graphics. Speaking to the violence in Ukraine, the propensity to find cooperation arises from a distance. Lafina Eptaminitaki’s 68 Hours 48 Minutes (Lemon Yellow) (2024) presents subtle cracks in the dried paint that reveal an imperfect grid. The grid is a motif for cartographers while also symbolizing connectivity and the internet. The imperfections speak to change and the corrosion of structures over time as fallacies in the foundations of space become more prevalent with close examination.
social geographies presents an inquiry into social horizons instead of drawn geographical lines, which lead to further multi-disciplinarity and intersectionality in our lives. In a constantly dynamic realm of common viewership, participation, and mobility both globally and locally, provocations are made for departures and new confluences. The real and imaginary space of the social is malleable and delicate and also constantly deteriorating and forming new. This exhibition is on view through a two-part rotating show at Kunstraum LLC gallery from September 15th - October 20th, 2024.
Text by Katelynn Dunn