Artist: Yi Hsuan Lai

Artworks

Articles & Reviews

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A Studio That Became a Gallery: 81 Leonard

What began as Nancy Pantirer’s studio in 1996 has grown, over nearly three decades, into a gallery with a clear sense of purpose. Rooted in years of open studios and informal salon gatherings, 81 Leonard formalized its public presence in 2019, building a platform shaped by artists, for artists. Co-run with Hannah Rothbard, the gallery supports emerging and mid-career artists at pivotal moments in their careers, with a program that prizes beauty, technical competence, and community. Group shows grow organically from the artists themselves. We spoke with Nancy Pantirer and Hannah Rothbard about how 81 Leonard came to be, what drives its program, and what it means to run a gallery with no plans to be anywhere else.

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Yi Hsuan Lai: The Ontology of the Body at SoMad

Yi Hsuan Lai exhibits her works in a solo show at SoMad, a femme- and queer-led art space that serves as a platform for emerging artists to experiment, collaborate, and challenge conventions. SoMad comprises a combined gallery and artist residency program, a production house, and an event space. The name “SoMad” reflects both the physical location — south of Madison Square Park — and the collective’s frustration with the current landscape of resources and support structures available for emerging artists, particularly artists from marginalized communities.

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Yi Hsuan Lai: Objects, Bodies, Things at Gallery 456

I was scrolling through Instagram recently when I saw a post that read: “What’s your artspeak ick?” The word “anthropomorphism” immediately came to mind. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that a friend of mine had an art history professor who once (in)famously tweeted: “I will scream into a pillow if I see another student write the word ‘anthropomorphic’ in their paper.” Therefore, I paused before ascribing “anthropomorphic” qualities to the work of Taiwanese artist Yi Hsuan Lai.

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Remote Work

How can artists unmute themselves and make work in creative dialogue with each other while they experience forced solitude at faraway places? How can collaborative practices be reinvented in social isolation? And how can virtual and chance encounters between strangers can lead to the making of jointly authored images and objects? The un/mute project, initiated by EUNIC New York and Undercurrent, the independent exhibition space in DUMBO, was an attempt to probe these questions by inviting 32 artists to work across borders, languages, and media, while sharing the global experience of the Covid-19 pandemic at distant locations, under varied social circumstances, and in cultural contexts.