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One wall a web through which the moment walks
Exhibition curated for 1/9unosunove, Rome
October-December 2023
Carla Accardi
Nadia Ayari
dadamaino
Gino De Dominicis
Carla Edwards
Kenji Fujita
Piero Gilardi
Hwi Hahm
Ellie Krakow
linn meyers
Sreshta Rit Premnath
Carol Rama
Julianne Swartz
Jonathan VanDyke
1/9unosunove is delighted to announce the opening of a major group exhibition, entitled One wall a web through which the moment walks, curated by New York–based artist Jonathan VanDyke. Pairing important 20th-century works by Italian artists, with 21st-century works by artists based in the US, the exhibition provides a unique opportunity to explore intertwined themes across cultures and generations. Through frequent research trips in Italy, VanDyke – whose first solo show appeared at the gallery a decade ago – has studied Italian modernism's relationship to the work of his contemporaries.
The exhibition is organized around the idea of "subtext" – that which lies under the surface, is emerging into perception, and is sensed but not said. VanDyke conceives of the exhibit as an antidote to the pressure placed on contemporary artists to define themselves through identifications that can be easily categorized and purposes that can be quickly summarized. The show is built around artists who complicate and "trouble" these expectations, who refuse to pinpoint what a work of art is "about" or to assure the marketplace that they represent a consistent "brand."
In an era of entwined global political and environmental crises, disinformation, enabled by social media algorithms, overwhelms nuance with noise. How could artists' insistence on ambiguity, complexity, and doubt serve as an imaginative alternative to the reactionary and the attention-seeking? In a 2021 essay in the publication Shifter (a journal founded by artist Sreshta Rit Premnath, who also appears in the exhibit), VanDyke argued for works of art that preference "warmth, reserve, attentiveness, maintenance, thoughtfulness, and receptivity," prioritizing slowness and emergence rather than products or results. One wall a web through which the moment walks manifests these ideas in real time and space.
Click here for entire press release with artist bios
The exhibition title is taken from the American poet Muriel Rukeyser's poem "Waterlily Fire," in which she reflects upon an accidental fire at The Museum of Modern Art in 1958. It was in this fire that one of Claude Monet's iconic waterlily paintings was burned, its surface charred and colors submerged: “The arm of flame striking through the wall of form."
PRESS:
"One wall a web through which the moment walks curated by Jonathan VanDyke," TIQUE, November 2023
"VanDyke espone un cortocircuito tra generazioni," by Tiziani Pacchettieri, Il Messagero, Rome, October 14
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