Tag: NYU Visual Arts Administration

In Andrius Alvarez-Backus’s solo exhibition, I Want to Know, I Need to Know, at Eli Klein Gallery, the work Are You Still Strong Enough? (2025) emerges as the visual center of the show’s underlying tension. A My Little Pony toy hangs vertically, the surface covered in bronze patina, while the incision along its abdomen is carefully stitched closed. What was once a lighthearted and slightly absurd object becomes, through this treatment, both fragile and solemn. Its form evokes a body after surgery, yet also resembles a preserved specimen. However, the meticulous stitching does not suggest that the wound has truly healed. Instead, the seam runs along the body, leaving the incision exposed and gradually becoming part of the sculpture’s structure. The suturing does not erase the rupture; it keeps the rupture visible. The wound is no longer simply a trace of intervention, but the structural element through which the work sustains its tension.