Annabel Keenan
everything slackens in a wreck
By Annabel KeenanReflecting on the complex consequences of indentureship, the show explores how these four artists respond to their shared diasporic heritage.
Women at War
By Annabel KeenanWomen at War is an exhibition, a history lesson, and an effort to preserve Ukrainian nationalism and culture. Hosted by Fridman Gallery and presented with Voloshyn Gallery, the group show features leading Ukrainian women artists who tell complex stories of war and life in Ukraine. Curated by Monika Fabijanska, Women at War addresses over a century of conflict, touching on the impact of both World Wars, the eight years of fighting that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the present-day war.
Lesia Khomenko: Full Scale
By Annabel KeenanFor her first-ever U.S. solo show, Full Scale at Fridman Gallery, Ukrainian artist Lesia Khomenko considers the unique experience of witnessing and documenting a war from afar. Like the rest of Ukraine, Khomenko’s life was upended when Russia invaded in February of 2022. As she fled the country, she left behind her physical world, as well as the less tangible aspects of daily life. Particularly crucial for Khomenko was the lack of information on the situation inside Ukraine and the loss of easy contact with her loved ones, including her husband, Max, who is fighting in the war.
Henrike Naumann: Re-Education
By Annabel KeenanIn her debut US solo show, Re-Education at SculptureCenter, Berlin-based artist Henrike Naumann explores the power of design to disseminate specific messages and align with larger ideologies.
Parallel Phenomena
By Annabel KeenanParallel Phenomena brings together dynamic works by Outsider artist Susan Te Kahurangi King and three “insiders” whose work has often resisted the artistic mainstream: Carroll Dunham, Gladys Nilsson, and Peter Saul.
Milano Chow: Prima Facie
By Annabel KeenanWhen titling her first institutional solo show at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Milano Chow reflected on the role of a title as the first impression of a show. Embracing this frontline nature, she chose Prima Facie, which translates from Latin to first impression.
Julia Jo: Riptide
By Annabel KeenanIn her first US solo show, Riptide at Charles Moffett, Julia Jo embarks on a journey of self-discovery, examining interpersonal relationships in figural paintings that are obscured with swirls of body parts, hints of objects, and glimpses of interiors. Jo’s works are all intimate, rooted in the artist’s own experiences of moving from Seoul, her birthplace, to the US, where she has continuously relocated, a journey that left her with truncated relationships, miscommunications, and in a constant state of reintroduction and reinvention.
RF. Alvarez: Eros
By Annabel KeenanFor Eros, his first solo show with Alanna Miller, Texas-based artist RF. Alvarez reflects on the evolving notion of home. Eros unfolds like a day in the artist’s life, or perhaps many days blended together. The richly colored narrative paintings (all 2023) are based on memories of fleeting moments, as well as photographs of the life Alvarez has built with his husband in Austin. The viewer is offered an intimate look at the people and experiences that comprise their home.
Celebrating the City
By Annabel KeenanThroughout this show, this feeling of being part of a larger, timeless community with shared interests and activities continually emerges.
Günther Uecker: Shields
By Annabel KeenanShields brings together just a handful of new and historic paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by Günther Uecker, creating a petite, elegant homage to the German artist’s 70 years of work. Throughout his career, Uecker’s main materials have included nails, graphite, and paint. He embraces the nuanced associations of nails in particular, considering the industrial use of the material to build and protect. For his newest body of work made in pandemic isolation, Uecker reflects on the layered function of a shield as an object to defend oneself from harm and a marker of self-identification in family crests and personal symbols.
