Anicka Yi’s Life Is Cheap

May 01, 2017

Life Is Cheap, an exhibition of new work from “biopolitical” artist and Hugo Boss Prize winner Anicka Yi, opened last week at the Guggenheim. The show consists of three elements, the first being a custom scent developed by the artist that integrates compounds taken from Asian American women and ants. Upon entry to the show, museum-goers are exposed to the unconventional fragrance via large scale atomizers, and under its sensory influence arrive in a room with two dioramas displayed on opposite walls. In one, refrigerated sheets of agar gum are embellished with colorful blooms of bacteria culled from Chinatown and Koreatown in Manhattan. In the other, a colony of ants, subjected to the same synthetic aroma as the viewer, works its way through an endlessly mirrored network of passageways that resemble complex circuitry. As a whole, the piece experiments with themes such as the entropy of nature and technology, and the social and political hierarchies of living organisms.

The exhibition is currently on view through July 5.

Art

Jarrett Earnest: When the Light Suddenly Dawns

November 17, 2023

Eight years ago, artist, writer, critic and curator Jarrett Earnest began to take a small instant camera with him everywhere he went. The only guiding principle seems to have been organicity, and anything was up for documentation: paintings, gravestones, friends, lovers, parties, flowers, sculptures, dicks. Earnest referred to the process of photographing these subjects and moments as “writing.”

Over the course of several years, he accrued thousands of these photos. Sixty of them, each paired with text on the opposite-facing page, come together to make Valid Until Sunset. Opening with a quote from philosopher Simone Weil, Earnest foregrounds his work with her “method for understanding images, symbols, etc. Not to try to interpret them, but to look at them till the light suddenly dawns.”

Words by Samuel Getachew
Photos by Jarrett Earnest, courtesy of MATTE Editions

Earnest weaves together images of artwork from Renaissance paintings to contemporary sculpture with moments from his own life, drawn to what he calls the more “permeable” images over “perfect” ones. The photos serve as entry points for the reader — who perhaps may be described more aptly as a witness — to investigate their own boundary that claims to separate art and life.

The written tableaus that accompany his images are made up of laconic observations and retellings, unceremonious but nonetheless suffused with a tenderness that is little too self-aware to be called nostalgia. Earnest transmutes his critic's scholarly logic and precision to navigate the jagged and precarious terrain of self-examination. That self-awareness permeates the work, perhaps inevitably — after all, it is a meta-reflection on these years of Earnest’s life, a retrospection on retrospections, an analysis of the memory of memory.

In one photo, a bouquet of flowers is placed on the grave of the aforementioned philosopher Simone Weil. In another, a lover lies naked on a bed, shot from above, a circle of post-coital dampness still visible on the sheets beside him. In Valid Until Sunset, love and loss, art and sex, and life and death rest shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, blurring the distinctions between one another, between the past and the present, and between Earnest and ourselves.

The photos “address you in the second person,” he writes, and so does he, narrating in the present tense. Of course, these moments are from the past, not the present, and they are his, not ours – but the central contemplation is a universal one. Valid Until Sunset is a meditation not only on how we see our lives, but how we ‘write’ them through documentation and storymaking, and how we read them, and read them again, and again, and again.

Jarrett Earnest is an artist, writer and curator living in New York City. His books include What It Means To Write About Art: Interviews with Art Critics (David Zwirner Books, 2018), The Young and Evil: Queer Modernism in New York 1930-1955 (David Zwirner Books 2020), Painting is a Supreme Fiction: Jesse Murry Writings, 1980-1993 (Soberscove, 2021), and Devotion: Today's Future is Tomorrow's Archive (Public, 2022). His writing has appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books, among many exhibition catalogs and other publications.

Valid Until Sunset is available for purchase from MATTE Editions.

Art

Jack Walls' Life of Magic

Everyone knows, or should know, about Walls relationship with famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. His lover, friend and somewhat of an artistic mentor, Mapplethorpe meant the world to Walls. Their lives were interwoven. As was he to other artists like Basquiat who painted him. He had seen Basquiat weeks before he died and after that, Mapplethorpe died too. Everyone was dying. Walls is a witness, enough so that a new crop of artists coming up in the 90s, Dash Snow, Dan Colen and Ryan McGinley among them, looked at him as some kind of legend. McGinley stood in the corner recording Walls as he spoke. Walls read from a short story that delved into Mapplethorpe's desire "to be cool," as well as his fascinations with art, sexy and money. “He liked having me as his boyfriend, and I was in love with him,” Walls said to us in the audience, blatantly, as if having recited this short story enough times that it was like saying hello to that person you see on your morning train ride every day.

The drawings worked similarly. On one of the many creations that lined the walls, Walls scribbled mantras how they were interwoven: “Through Mapplethorpe, I learned not only about photography but also about drawing and painting.”

Walls also spoke of AIDS, heroin, the liveliness that defined the era and the people he knew, and the inevitable reality of endings that's kept these death-bound circumstances in the past. Reminiscing on his relationships with Ryan McGinley and his friends, he drew comparisons between Snow and Basquiat, two artists who both seemed to be fighting "the same demons" — and both members of the infamous “27 Club.” Walls carried off on tangents every so often as he remembered specific moments while he read, making it clear that he was a purveyor of the magic — of that time, of those people, of that art — that he so candidly recalled.

Check out photos from the opening below.

Art

'Masculinidad' Through a Softer Lens

During Viveros' middle adolescence, photography presented itself as an accessible medium to connect with the world around him. "My family would buy disposable cameras for the family, and I would take those cameras and take pictures. I would get in trouble for this, but this eventually all grew into a passion for me that I could simply not ignore," Viveros recounts. Building upon years of experimenting with film cameras, the Los Angeles-based artist created a distinct visual language that speaks to his culture, aesthetic values, and strong POV.

Over various coffee meet-ups and long conversations, Viveros pieced together his intentions as an image-maker, ultimately providing the foundation for his most ambitious project to date. 'Masculinidad' synthesizes his artistic ambitions of creating beautiful images with explorations of his identity. This series became actualized through a lifelong confrontation with his masculinity tied with the acceptance of his queer sexuality within a Latine cultural context. Navigating these internal thoughts led the Mexican-American photographer to employ his film camera to provide nuance to a rather binary understanding of expression. "Being a first-generation individual, it was interesting having to independently navigate through different experiences and emotions," Viveros recollects. "I did not have anyone to help me navigate through it, which is why all the information I obtained was through the media and friends. My goal is to authentically depict the essence of men in their everyday lives and private settings in hopes that others can relate and navigate finding their identity."

My goal is to authentically depict the essence of men in their everyday lives and private settings in hopes that others can relate and navigate finding their identity.

From nude portraiture, capturing the soft slopes of a back, to gazes outside the frame, each model possesses an intimacy and vulnerability that appears worlds away from traditional masculine qualities like aggression, toughness, and emotional suppression. In one image, a nude tattooed subject is sprawled out across a boulder swathed in a cool tone, offering a glance back at the camera–an act of tenderness. In another, a model bares themself to the camera straight on, where full frontal meets the eye of the viewer–disarmed. The raw approach and minimal production affirm the intentionality behind the series–where real people shed themselves from conventions and social pressure. "I love shooting people who don't really have experience modeling; capturing someone being their true self is the most authentic way I like to capture photos," Viveros notes.

In conversation with not only the observing eye, but the subjects also act as one part of a whole environment, where the setting directly informs their ability to be vulnerable–a silent dialogue contextualizing the entire series. "Some models preferred the outdoors, and others in the comfort of their own homes," the visual artist expresses. "The models that were outdoors trusted my team and me, and for that, I am forever grateful. The models that allowed us in their homes felt most comfortable there, and I was very adamant about the models' comfort." Backdropped by linen curtains, white walls, and nature, 'Masculinidad' directly opposes typical scenes of burly men in workshops, garages, and inside cars. While conversations around masculinity have become more prevalent among younger generations, specifically in a Western context, power dynamics, and gendered expectations still define many cultures, specifically Latin culture, where the needle is moving ever so slightly. Although these cultural norms persist, it's important to envision a world where identity and expression are more fluid– one image and one conversation at a time.

On November 18th in Los Angeles, Viveros presents his complete series 'Masculinidad' in exhibition form, accompanied by an independently created zine.

Check out select images from his photo series below, and catch the complete show on November 18th.