When I first learned how to swim as a child, my instructor told me to hold onto the edge of the pool and practice kicking. He counted the rhythm aloud, occasionally adjusting the angle of my body. Water kept splashing into my face, yet I could not make myself move forward. The actions had been broken down into steps: kicking, stroking, breathing, and I seemed to complete each one, but they never came together as a whole. Then, at some point, I stopped sinking. I still cannot say what exactly happened in that moment.
Continue reading “Learning Where There Is No Bottom: On the Thresholds of Swim Lessons”Judy Chung: Cafeteria at RAINRAIN
JUDY CHUNG: CAFETERIA AT RAINRAIN
110 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10013, February 13 – March 14, 2026, Wed- Sat, 11 am – 6 pm
RAINRAIN presents Cafeteria, Judy Chung’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, featuring new paintings centered on the school cafeteria as a charged social microcosm. Exploring how identity is formed and negotiated in public, Chung stages collisions between cute and grotesque, sincerity and artifice. Drawing on anime, Baroque drama, and digital image culture, her psychologically charged figures navigate judgment, belonging, and cultural displacement shaped by her transnational upbringing. Spaghetti recurs as an ambiguous symbol of comfort and abjection. Anchored by Symbiosis (Cafeteria) (2025), the exhibition also includes works such as Spaghetti Lariat and Communion, where social ritual, violence, and performance converge.