Artist: Ala Dehghan

Artworks

Articles & Reviews

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial Names 48 Artists and Art Spiel as Media Partner for their 2nd Edition

The second edition of The Immigrant Artist Biennial, titled “Contact Zone”, will showcase the work of 48 artists at seven locations across New York and New Jersey from September to December 2023. The curatorial trio adopted the biennial’s theme from a term coined in 1991 by linguist and critical theorist Mary Louise Pratt, which she used to describe “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations.” Katherine Adams, co-curator and an affiliate of EMPAC, explains in a statement how this concept guided their curatorial research: “It allowed us to work with a productively fractured relationship to place. It also encapsulates our attempt to find an organizational concept for artistic infrastructures that are diasporic in form and not only content—that can deal with effects of situations such as exile, alienation, or simply the elusive concept of home.”

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Ground Histories at PS122

The grouping of mostly floor-bound sculptures in “Ground Histories”, the current group show curated by Will Corwin at PS122 Gallery, not only pulls our attention to the ground, but also makes us aware of what is underneath its surface – archaeological artifacts, graves, excavated memories. In the east room a triangular layout consisting of Will Corwin’s altar-like sculpture, Heidi Lau’s arched-shape ceramic sculpture sprawling, and David Goodman’s forte-like structure, create a sense of both tension and connectivity. Made of plaster and sand, painted with terra cotta and white tempera hues, and tied with rough ropes, Corwin’s “Jaw” is a rectangular free-standing sculpture that draws literally upon teeth and invokes the idea of the archaic – an architectural ruin from an unidentified culture, or an archaeological artifact with an enigmatic ritual significance. The tooth, a pivotal element in both forensics and bioarcheology, can be read in Corwin’s sculptures as a loaded metaphor for what it means to be human.