Fine Art Magazine Blog: The Shed , NOW ON VIEW: Open Call 2023 Group Exhibition Eleven emerging NYC artists present 10 new works through January 21 in The Shed's Level 2 Gallery

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

The Shed , NOW ON VIEW: Open Call 2023 Group Exhibition Eleven emerging NYC artists present 10 new works through January 21 in The Shed's Level 2 Gallery

The Open Call 2023 Group Exhibition is on view now through January 21, 2024, in The Shed’s Level 2 Gallery featuring new work by 11 emerging NYC-based artists: Minne Atairu, Jake Brush, Cathy Linh Che & Christopher Radcliff, Armando Guadalupe Cortés, Lizania Cruz, Bryan Fernandez, Luis A. Gutierrez, Jeffrey Meris, Calli Roche, and Sandy Williams IV.

The new works intersect the artists' personal stories with global history, proposing care and community-based responses to the urgent issues of our time. The exhibition presents the work of artists selected as part of Open Call, The Shed's large-scale commissioning program for early-career, NYC-based artists and will be followed by a performance series in summer 2024. This is the third visual art cohort of the program.

Admission is free with reserved advance tickets at theshed.org/opencall

OPEN CALL 2023 GROUP EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Minne Atairu: To the Hand
A sculptural installation that uses artificial intelligence to imagine an Afrofuturism inspired by the oral tradition and material culture of Benin

Minne Atairu (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist whose research-based practice seeks to reclaim the obscured histories of the Benin Bronzes.

Jake Brush: Petpourri
A video and sculptural installation reimagining a Long Island TV show

Jake Brush (he/him) draws from reality television, horror movies, and comedy to make bombastic characters and worlds through video, performance, sculpture, and installation art. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Cathy Linh Che & Christopher Radcliff: Appocalips
A multichannel video installation based on the real-life experiences of Cathy Linh Che’s parents, Vietnam War refugees, who in 1976, while stateless in a refugee camp in the Philippines, were hired to play extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now

Cathy Linh Che (she/her) is a Vietnamese American writer and multimedia artist from Los
Angeles.

Christopher Radcliff (he/him) is a Chinese American filmmaker living and working in New York City.

Armando Guadalupe Cortés: Palenque
A structure in the form of a palenque, a round cockfighting ring. The skeletal and ghostly architectural support for a seating arena for violent sport creates a space in which spectacle is both expected and denied.

Armando Guadalupe Cortés’s (he/him) practice builds on storytelling, object-making, and performance traditions. Merging forms and methods from his native México and broader Latin American literary traditions, he contrasts and hybridizes performances with elements of his life in the United States.

Lizania Cruz: Evidence 071: The Commission of Inquiry
A multimedia installation, based on Cruz’s research in the Dominican Republic, that explores the role of US imperialism and asks audiences to consider their relation to ongoing processes of colonization

Lizania Cruz (she/her) is a Dominican participatory artist, and designer interested in how migration affects ways of being and belonging.

Bryan Fernandez: Who I am, Quiénes Somos
A series of mixed-media assemblages exploring the Dominican diaspora across the Northeast United States and the Dominican Republic that examines how identity and material culture find ways to reimagine belonging within immigrant communities

Bryan Fernandez (he/him) is a Dominican American artist from Washington Heights, located in Upper Manhattan, born in 2000.

Luis A. Gutierrez: Las Nueve Demandas (The Nine Demands)
A series of monumental paintings that draw from archival records of the December 1928 Masacre de las bananeras, a mass killing executed by the United Fruit Company in response to a strike after the company failed to meet demands for fair wages and humane labor conditions made by plantation workers in November of the same year

Luis A. Gutierrez (he/him) is a mixed-media artist connecting our past and present through the exploration of historical events. He creates multilayered paintings and installations by dissecting canvases and abstracting historical images.

Jeffrey Meris: Catch a Stick of Fire III (Dark Man X)
A horticultural sculpture supporting orchids that was conceived during Meris’s Self-Care Saturdays, a personal ritual that provided psychological sanctuary over the past year’s dual crises of continued violence against Black individuals and the global pandemic

Jeffrey Meris (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with ecology, embodiment, and various lived experiences while healing deeply personal and historical wounds.

Calli Roche: Death to Dermis: Ecdysis
A metaphorical shucking of the body, searching for the core. Each work uses various pattern-making and sculpture techniques to peel layers of the self in an effort to dissect the various psychic and physiological components that constitute the self.

Calli Roche (she/they) is an American artist based in Brooklyn. Roche frequently works with reclaimed objects, wood, skins, and textiles. The materials take on different ontological significance in each work yet frequently reference the fraught relationships between violence, identity, and sexuality.

Sandy Williams IV: 40 ACRES: Weeksville
A multilayered public performance that took place in the sky above the remaining fragments of Weeksville, Brooklyn, a historical African American neighborhood founded by freed, formerly enslaved people in the 19th century

Sandy Williams IV (they/he/she) is an artist and educator whose work generates moments of communal catharsis. Their conceptual and research-based practice uses time itself as a material, and works collaboratively with communities to unfold hidden legacies in common spaces.

Public Programs for Open Call 2023 Group Exhibition
Join us for screenings, talks, and more with the Open Call artists. These public programs are included with free admission to the exhibition, first come, first served. (Programs for December and January will be announced.)

Appocalips: Poetry Reading, Screening, and Q&A
Friday, November 17, 6:30 pm
Level 2 Gallery
A full viewing of the filming will be followed by a talkback/Q&A with artists Cathy Linh Che and Christopher Radcliff

Book signing of An Asian American A to Z: A Children’s Guide to Our History
Friday, November 17, 8 pm
McNally Jackson at The Shed in The Doctoroff Lobby
A book signing with artist and author Cathy Linh Che followed by a small reception

A history of imperialistic practices and labor abuse
Saturday, November 18, 1 pm
Level 4 Overlook
A conversation between artist Luis A. Gutierrez and Dan La Botz, history and urban studies professor at Queens College, moderated by Associate Curator at Large Eduardo Andres Alfonso

To The Hand: Reclaiming the Benin Bronzes with AI
Saturday, November 18, 4 pm
Level 4 Overlook
A dialogue with artist Minne Atairu and Davinia Gregory-Kameka, assistant professor in the arts administration program at Columbia University, moderated by Associate Curator at Large Eduardo Andres Alfonso

Support

The Sponsor of Open Call is TD Ready Commitment.

Support for Open Call is generously provided by Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, National Endowment for the Arts, and The Shed Creative Council.

Additional support for Open Call is provided by Warner Bros. Discovery 150, The Wescustogo Foundation, and Jody and John Arnhold | Arnhold Foundation.

The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and the Shed Commissioners.

About The Shed
The Shed is a new cultural institution of and for the 21st century. We produce and welcome innovative art and ideas, across all forms of creativity, to build a shared understanding of our rapidly changing world and a more equitable society. In our highly adaptable building on Manhattan’s west side, The Shed brings together established and emerging artists to create new work in fields ranging from pop to classical music, painting to digital media, theater to literature, and sculpture to dance. We seek opportunities to collaborate with cultural peers and community organizations, work with like-minded partners, and provide unique spaces for private events. As an independent nonprofit that values invention, equity, and generosity, we are committed to advancing art forms, addressing the urgent issues of our time, and making our work impactful, sustainable, and relevant to the local community, the cultural sector, New York City, and beyond.