Allyson Glenn, Dual Portrait, Crying Aphrodite, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 51 x 71”, 2020
/ˈkapCHər/
June 3 - 22, 2022
With works by Guillaume Adjutor Provost, Anne Büscher, Jon Ek, Allyson Glenn, Jennifer Chia-Ling Ho, Katie Hubbell, Kumi Kaguraoka, Hyemi Kim, Jenny Rafalson, Hyeree Christina Mary Ro, Lau Wai, Huidi Xiang.
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6-9pm
NARS Main Gallery
NARS Foundation is proud to present /ˈkapCHər/, a series of poetic, digital, and material explorations towards modes for capture, contention, and preservation. Through the use of video, installation, painting and photography, the twelve artists establish dialogues with aesthetic standards, pop culture, youtube trends, mythology, literature, technology, economy, and language.
In /ˈkapCHər/, language is explored as shape, as poetry, as rhythm, and reflection, but is also interrogated as a power dynamic. The works in the show speak to a core nature related to who we are as individuals and the ways identity can be captured and represented. Many of their concerns focus on the assimilation of differences, and on building up bridges for shared experiences as humans, in entanglement with other forms of existence.
Support for this exhibition generously provided by:
About the artists:
Guillaume Adjutor Provost is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and educator who experiments with forms of exhibition, collections, text, and curation. His artistic practice is motivated by a desire to update what has long existed on the periphery of dominant historical discourses: class consciousness, counter-culture, vernacular imagery — notably folklore and Quebec applied arts —, and experiences of queerness. His practice regularly takes the form of curated installations; by working with collaborators, these encounters influence the materialization of interdisciplinary works hybridizing collections, sculptures, drawings, photographs, performances, video or textual works. Recipient of grants from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman scholarship, as well as a finalist for the Pierre-Ayot prize of the city of Montreal in 2016/2019, and for the Sobey Art Award in 2021, the projects of Guillaume Adjutor Provost have been presented in individual and group exhibitions in Canada, France, Austria, Scotland, Germany, Lithuania, Belgium and Spain.
Anne Büscher (b. Stuttgart, 1991) makes objects, sculptures, installations, photos, and artist-books based on experimental research on the identity of materials. Her work has been displayed at fairs, galleries and art spaces such as PAD Paris, London and Geneva, TOKAS Tokyo, Looiersgracht 60 Amsterdam, Bureau Europa Maastricht, CIAP Hasselt, Space Collection Liиge, Japan Cultural Institute in Cologne and Ludwig Forum Aachen among others. Anne holds a Bachelor in Jewelry Design from the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design and a Master of Fine Arts from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Before coming to NARS in New York she has been an Artist in Residence at Villa Waldberta, Germany 2020, Tokyo Wonder Site in Tokyo, Japan in 2016 and at RAVI in Liиge, Belgium in 2017.
Jon Ek lives and works in Malmö, Sweden and is a graduate from Konstfack in Stockholm. Working mainly with installation, video, sculpture and text he explores different neuroscientific phenomenas and theories such as panpsychism, quantum biology and ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). He has exhibited his works in several collective and personal exhibitions, and has been awarded working and travel grants from the Swedish Art Grants Committee.
Allyson Glenn specializes in painting and drawing. In her series Passages, folklore busts of mythological gods juxtapose abstraction, contemporary architecture, gardens, and people – all part of her investigation of otherworldly presences and the continuity of Greek myths. Using ‘myth’ as a tool to disseminate topics surrounding land, people, and sustainability, her work explores the complex intertwining between ancient stories, archetypes and current events. Allyson’s new series Eclipse (2021-2023, in progress) continues this investigation centering on themes of hubris, humility, and hypocrisy. This series probes the junction between the actions of humans and their gods; evoking discussion around the shadow aspects of unseen forces on the human psyche. Since 2020, she has developed four large-scale paintings, a series of watercolor paintings, and two short animation films.
Jennifer Chia-Ling Ho is a Taiwanese interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her practice responds to her linguistic and cultural displacement as a first-generation immigrant. She makes text-based sculpture, installation, collage, and sound. In Ho's recent ongoing project ‘How are you?,’ she uses found texts from English as a Second Language (ESL) materials to consider the racial, cultural, and social power dynamics that language enacts and identity’s uncertainty and performativity in immigrants and foreigners.
Katie Hubbell’s multimedia practice operates within the formal slippages of installation, sculpture, performance, and video. She examines mass-media aesthetization, highlighting the tensions and comforts embedded within sensuous images. Using objects and materials from everyday life, Hubbell’s practice reveals the flirtations and repulsions, states of boredom and states of obsession, parallels and contradictions which inhabit twenty-first century advertisement culture and self-help models of care.
Kumi Kaguraoka worked at a toy design company, and then as an art director after graduating with an MFA from Musashino Art University in 2012. She has practiced as an artist since 2015. In 2015 she was selected as an artist in residence by “Bank ART”, and her artworks won the Grand Prix at “SICF 16”. Her artworks have been frequently exhibited at major department stores, galleries, museums, and art centers since 2016. In 2016, she started working on her artwork’s ongoing theme “The Metamorphosis of Beautiful Bodies”.
Hyemi Kim is a multi-media artist based in New York and Seoul. She received her MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts and got her first MFA and BFA in Painting from Seoul, South Korea. Her video works were shown at Time Square, from the ZAZ corner and several group shows in NYC. She participated in the 2021 New Media Art Conference and had her second solo show at CICA Museum. She is also active in South Korea participating in the 2017 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, and the 2016 ASYAF(Asian Student & Young Artist Art Fair). Kim does video collages works to create a digital utopia and to find a new way of video narrative.
Jenny Rafalson, born in the former USSR, grow up in Israel and currently based between the USand Israel. Rafalson works across photography and video. In her works, she explores the narrative and memory of home, identity as an immigrant and belonging often symbolized through the use of objects and plants. Rafalson is the recipient of the James Weinstein Memorial Fellowship (2019-2020), and NARS residency (2022) and Open Portfolio Review : Outstanding project award at Israel Photography Festival (2017). She exhibited at Expo Chicago (2022), 062 gallery Chicago (2020), Filter photo Chicago (2021), Mana contemporary Chicago (2021), Photo is:rael International photography festival (2018). She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2020) and BFA from Hadassah collage Jerusalem.
Hyeree Christina Mary Ro’s sculptural, bilingual, narrative-based performances explore the social, historical, and topographical relationships of Korean migrant experience, often along with family history. Her work has been exhibited at Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, KR), Korean Culture Centre (Ottawa, Canada) among others. She received her BFA from Korea National University of Arts and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale in 2021.
Born in Hong Kong, Lau Wai currently lives and works in New York. She utilizes photography, moving images, new media, performance, and installation to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory and virtuality collide in the process of identities formation. Her research and material sources range from personal and historical archives to cinematic imagery, popular culture and digital media. She has exhibited in Europe, Asia, and the United States, including Kunstmuseum Brandts, Denmark (2016); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018); Para Site Art Space, Hong Kong (2015, 2018); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019, 2021); Kuandu Biennale, Taiwan (2018); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan (2015); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States (2019); and Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020). Her works are collected by M+ Museum (Hong Kong); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (United States); and Alexander Tutsek – Stiftung Foundation (Germany), among others.
Huidi Xiang (b. Chengdu, China) is an artist and researcher. She holds an MFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University (2021) and a BA in Architecture and Studio Art from Rice University (2018). In her practice, Huidi makes sculptural objects, installations, and systems to examine world-making processes and the coexistence of multiple contexts and narratives in late capitalism. Her current work explores the spatial and temporal effects of inhabiting both the virtual and physical worlds. Huidi’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including OCAT Biennale at OCAT Art & Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China, Contemporary Calgary, Calgary, Canada, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, and Miller ICA in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Huidi has also completed some artist residencies, including ACRE Residency Program(2021), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2020), and Project Row Houses Summer Studios (2016).
