Glow in the Dark
GALLERY III
Sky Kesler, Scorpio Rising, Digital Artwork.
July 2 — August 1, 2021
Opening Reception: Friday, July 2, 12-6pm (by appointment) with actions by Infinite and Pieza at 3pm
Torey Akers, Emmy Bright, Brittany Burton, Brandon Coley-Cox, Adinah Dancyger (featuring Mykki Blanco), Jazzmint Dash, Pieza Collective: Dulce Lamarca, Maximilian Juliá, Daniel Arturo Almeida, Infinite, Sky Kesler, Nikki Lau, Philadelphia Printworks (featuring Maryam Pugh), Tamara Santibañez, and Elise Warfield
Curated by Kristina Bivona
A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Glow in the Dark, a group exhibition that politicizes formalism through the language of color. The aesthetic and conceptual choices made by each artist swing from fluorescent exuberance to sobriety in black and white. Glow in the Dark brings these artists together to ask the question: Why are formal aesthetics so often devoid of politics?
The uses of color in Glow in the Dark interrogate the roots of our visual value systems and their affectual associations. The works included in the exhibition invest in formats and media that have traditionally been disavowed by the mainstream art world, such as ephemera, DIY merchandise, and graffiti. In this way, they illuminate the full range of authentic lived experience with cringe, intimacy, and candor. By centering the dignity and ingenuity inherent to marginalized existence, Glow In the Dark situates hue, tone, and saturation as artful means of addressing the visual spectrum in identity.
This grouping of artists aims to divorce the monied, masculine project of minimalism from the communicative majesty of monochrome, working towards a more expansive understanding of color signification.
On Friday, July 2 at 3pm, a public connection between exhibition and community will occur one block away on the waterfront and continue through the evening. First, a public balloon installation by Infinite will proceed from the exhibition to the waterfront, where the collective Pieza will share an evening of domino gameplay complete with snacks and celebration. Glow in the Dark will be on view until 6pm by appointment and visitors are encouraged to join with friends and family to play games and celebrate the conversations artists carry in color and community.
Kristina Bivona is the Curatorial Fellow at Columbia University Teachers College. In 2017, Bivona helped found the Recess print shop where she works as a teaching artist to this day. Bivona’s practice is a form of resistance, bringing the essence of punk to fine art, kettled there by the inhospitable environments of racism, classism, and sexism.
Bivona is the eldest of three girls who recently adopted her mother’s maiden name. She grew up impoverished and always saved the food bank USDA canned pork until the end of the month. She has worked with her hands since childhood and has applied her body in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to: professional domme-work, college, riding freight, curating, squatting, writing, mothering, politics, and art. Through critique, collection, text, and materials, she manipulates issues of sex-work, gender, anti-racism, and counterculture in contemporary art.
View the Press Release here.
Read Torey Akers’ catalogue essay here.
Photography: Sebastian Bach