3RD: REMINDERS OF EXISTENCE — All Street Gallery

Exhibition Statement:
NEW YORK, NY – All Street Gallery is pleased to present Reminders of Existence, a group exhibition featuring Eden Chinn, Milo Hume, Shradha Kochhar, and Abby Wang. The exhibition is co-curated by Aleksandra Dougal and Maya Rajan, and will be on view from August 23 - September 13, 2024, at All Street’s East Village location, 77 East Third Street, New York, NY, 10003. The opening reception will take place on Friday, August 23, from 6 - 9 pm.

Exploring the central question, “What do you do to remind yourself that you exist?,” the exhibition utilizes a range of mediums to investigate relationships, expression, and intimacy as confirmation of identity. The show is a celebration of our existence - rather, our awareness of our existence. Mundanity, boredom, guilt, shame, and the overwhelming amount of violence in the world make it all too easy to retreat into ourselves and operate on autopilot. Passive and detached, such a state feels as though life is happening around you and to you, foregoing all feelings of autonomy and creativity. In order to override this dissociation and disconnection, we often turn to the relationships and shared experiences whose evidence reminds us: I am here, I exist, now, and I am changing all the time.

Reminders of Existence overrides this pervasive passivity, providing a space to share the ways in which interpersonal connection enriches life and makes it meaningful. All of these reminders are forms of closeness; likewise, all artworks in this show are in some way collaborative, and draw from the experiences of connection and sharing. The pieces on display represent a vast variety of mediums, including a short film, photographic work, mixed media and collage, textiles, painting, and drawing. The artwork explores a range of feelings and moments in which one feels rooted in oneself and the space one occupies; recounting times when our friendships, passions, and bodies serve as reminders of our constant growth and ability to change.

Eden Chinn and Milo Hume’s collaborative mixed media photography series, WHO’S THE BOY YOU LIKE THE MOST, first began as a conversation investigating the subject of masculinity, femininity, and intimacy. Using Hume as the photographic subject, Chinn and Hume’s works examine the stakes of adhering to versus breaking the norms of masculine expectations. The series employs a vast number of creative production methods and materials: 35mm photography, UV printing on iron and canvas, as well as image transfers onto metal, and a range of hand drawn mediums that reveal the artists’ hands and introduce elements of sentimentality.

The experience of living within patriarchal structures comes to a front in the large-scale piece, FLAG through the use of materials and contrasting imagery. On the right side of the piece, the metal background is in full display, as is the printed visual of two dogs fighting, whose violence is exemplified by one of the animal’s teeth finding the other’s neck. Against this backdrop is the name, Frank Sturgus Cassidy, roughly pasted onto the metal, whose blaring masculine overtones reinforce the right side of the piece as emblematic of the masculine ideal.

However, this patriarchal portrayal does not take up very much space, for the majority of FLAG is dominated by another image, one situated in green grass and yellow wildflowers, whose atmosphere is in direct opposition to its metallic companion. The masculine subject’s torso seems to arise from the cold, inanimate metal, and bows to the earth in self-effacement, burying his face within the scents and sounds of swaying wildgrass. It doesn’t seem coincidental, furthermore, that we consider nature as feminine. As such, Chinn and Hume offer viewers an example of masculinity that emerges from the cold patriarchal world and towards nature, seeking out feminine models for a better understanding of masculine expression.

In To Rethread, Abby Wang allows the spectators to consider the concept of the fanbook, whose form is uniquely fit to serve as an interactive visual chronicle of a story, idea, and feeling. To Rethread represents different phases of a relationship and the pain of losing it, tied together by a red string that connects the pieces in a linear order. Wang displays a sequence of events that spiral and fan out from the debut, instilling a sense of disarray, confusion, and loss of control - how quickly connections can be formed and how quickly they can be lost. To Rethread approaches the guiding question of existence by examining relationships, putting forth the idea that Reminders of Existence are not exclusively positive, but can instead be painful losses of love. This theme is accented in the final piece of the fanbook, in which, for the first time, there is only one figure present, whose heart has been pierced.

Shradha Kochhar’s The Chair provides another perspective of how connection is inherent to existence. Kochhar’s large sculptural work engages the cotton crafting skill of ‘khadi’ - hand-spun and hand-knit ‘kala cotton,’ indigenous to India - and manipulated bamboo rods that provide structure and form to the knit shapes. Kochar utilizes her home-spun kala cotton to examine the intersection of material memory, sustainability, and intergenerational healing. Kochar strives to generate a physical archive of personal and collective South Asian narratives linked to women’s work, invisible labor and grief, and The Chair is large scale and exists as sculpture beyond whispers over generations.

The Chair is a work of curves, circles, and spirals whose fluid movement mirrors the meditative exercise of knitting and spinning at the core of the work’s conception. The upper section of the work is one of overlapping circles of transparent beige cotton knit connecting three circular bamboo bases; these forms present two faces, openly gazing towards one another from extended cotton-knit necks. A bamboo rod connects the figures, bonding each with a knit-wrapped lifeline. The function of this bamboo rod as the connecting link of the work mirrors Abby Wang’s red thread that intertwines To Rethread. As such, these two pieces enunciate Reminders of Existence’s theme of contemplating existence through interpersonal connection. One is encouraged to stand with the piece, consider the abstracted shapes, and look past the simplified forms to reach the intimate and vulnerable essence of the work. The Chair is a work that displays the simplicity of human connection in the quiet closeness of these two figures.

Milo Hume’s short film Passing time illustrates the history and significance that lies in interpersonal connection. Hume touches on converging themes of masculinity, friendship, youth, and the varying expressions of violence and love. Hume supplements Reminders of Existence’s central question with one of his own: How are men socially conditioned to express love and affection with one another? The film explores another dimension of connection: what it means to grow up at the side of another, and to share in the experience of life. To Hume, existence is inherent in the sharing of friendships, the contemplation of time, and the experience of getting older. Passing Time begins with unfocused close-ups of hands: hands touching, feeling, wrapping tape around each other, bonding.

Passing time is a dynamic film whose feverish physicality documents the experience of get on top, a childhood game played between Hume and his best friend since pre-K days. The rules of get on top are quite simple: the two players tape their hands together and wrestle, aiming to make the other player’s head hit the ground first. Knowing the context of the game, one would expect a show of force and aggression. Instead, the visuals are extremely intimate, an intimacy which is heightened by the setting atop a bed, the centerpiece of the otherwise bare room. At times, the viewers feel slightly uncomfortable, sensing that perhaps we are intruding on a private moment. The extreme close-ups further implicate us in this intimacy; we, too, seem to be pressed up against one another.

The short film, which is just under five minutes long, documents the game’s grappling combat, displaying both a literal interpretation of Reminders of Existence’s theme of closeness - the binding of hands makes it impossible for the two to separate - along with a more subtle contemplation of viewing existence through interpersonal connection.

The artwork of Reminders of Existence guides viewers on the experience of interpreting one’s own existence. Through themes of intimacy, self-expression, and closeness, the works in this show, despite their diverse mediums, are intimately connected to one another in their shared reflection of the question, “What do you do to remind yourself that you exist?” As such, one begins to realize that the simple act of trying to comprehend one’s own existence is a self-defining and unifying pursuit.

About All Street Gallery:
Founded in 2018, All Street NYC presents works by emerging and underrepresented artists whose works demonstrate social engagement and community empowerment. First established as an artist collective and grassroots protest organization by born and raised New Yorkers, All Street NYC is a space that is both created by and for artists. Having deep roots in New York City, the gallery and collective share a background in public art and activations as a means of creative protest and resistance. Such socially engaged work has carried into their gallery space as they opened their doors on 77 East Third Street, and as they now open their second location at 119 Hester Street.

For press and sales inquiries, please contact:
Ciaran Short
gallery@allstnyc.com

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