Untold Narratives - A Seductive Echo

UNTOLD NARRATIVES A SEDUCTIVE A SEDUCTIVE A SEDUCTIVE A

NARRATIVESSEDUCTIVE ECHO SEDUCTIVE ECHO SEDUCTIVE ECHO A SEDUCTIVE ECHO A SEDUCTIVE A SEDUCTIVE A SEDUCTIVE

UNTOLD NARRATIVESA SEDUCTIVE ECHO

JANUARY 18TH - FEBRUARY 22ND

Roni Aviv

Wai Lau

Sara Rahmanian

Nooshin Rostami

Nic Villarosa

Ari Wolff

Tin Wai Wong

Curator: Michelle Song .

CURATOR STATEMENT

In Roman Mythology, the nymph Echo falls in love with Narcissus, a beautiful youth who rejects her love and instead becomes infatuated with his own reflection. Echo was cursed to lose her speech yet eager to express her longing. She repeated Narcissus’ words until the repetition became a language of her own. Meanwhile, Narcissus beholds his own reflection, an image he failed to recognize as himself.

Untold Narratives - A Seductive Echo probes the connection between language and self-perception. The experiences of traversing spatial, temporal, and linguistic terrains often come with the imperative of adopting a borrowed tongue. The artists in this exhibition contend with the limits and potentials of language manifested in misinterpretation, abstraction, and slippages. Their works render distorted and fragmented expressions of the self as mediated by popular culture, new technologies, and experiences of isolation and displacement. As we attempt to navigate the images of ourselves through various paradigms of meaning-making, we utter Echo and Narcissus in one breath, with repetition and soliloquy.

CURATOR BIO

Michelle Song is a freelance curator and writer. She is program manager at the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College. Song holds an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Opening

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

Public Program

Wednesday, February 8th, 2023 | 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Culminating Celebration

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos

450 Grand Concourse at 149th St., Room C-190

Bronx, New York 10451 (718) 518-6728

longwood@bronxarts.org

The Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos is currently closed to the public until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longwood Arts Project

The Longwood Arts Project is the contemporary visual arts program of the Bronx Council on the Arts, with the mission to support artists and their work, especially emerging artists from underrepresented groups, such as people of color, the LGBT* community, and women. The Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos presents solo and group exhibitions of works of art produced in various media, through interdisciplinary practices that connect emerging artists, communities, and ideas within and beyond The Bronx.

The Bronx Council on the Arts

Founded by visionary community leaders in 1962, The Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA) is a pioneer in advancing cultural equity in The Bronx. From our early beginnings as a presenter of affordable arts programming in select Bronx neighborhoods, we have grown into a cultural hub that serves the entire creative ecosystem of the borough.  Our programs serve artists, the public, and the field at large by building connections, providing resources, and advocating for equitable practices. Then as now, we focus on supporting the work of underrepresented groups – especially artists of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Through this lens we offer affordable programs for seniors and youth, and provide direct services to over 1,500 artists and 250 community-based arts groups each year.

www.bronxarts.org

The Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture

An integral part of Hostos Community College/CUNY since 1982, the Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture, which includes two state-of-the-art theaters of 900 and 360 seats each, a black box experimental theater, and a museum-grade art gallery, is a resource for students and faculty in addition to serving the cultural needs of South Bronx residents and neighboring communities. Recognized nationally as a leader in Latin and African-based programming, the Hostos Center creates performing and visual arts forums in which the diverse cultural heritages of its audiences are celebrated and cultivated. In meeting that objective, the Center is dedicated to the development of emerging artists and the creation of new work. www.hostoscenter.org

LONGWOOD ART GALLERY @ HOSTOS YOUTH ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM

Longwood’s Youth Engagement Program, launched in 2018, is designed to engage Bronx youth with the rich visual arts scene that surrounds them. By providing gallery experiences they can relate to – and interactions with artists who reside in the same neighborhoods, share similar cultural identities, and even nations of origin – young people gain formative experiences of cultural engagement that last a lifetime.

Activities are free, age-appropriate, and created by professional teaching artists to foster critical thinking, interviewing and public speaking skills. If your organization, school, or group works with youth and would like to discuss scheduling a workshop or to arrange a visit, connect with us!

Illustration by Ruben Ramirez

RONI AVIV

Roni Aviv (born 1992) is a visual artist based in New York. Aviv works with photography, text and installation to give form to a psychological space of reprocessing experiences. Aviv holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and studied photography at Cooper Union and Bezalel Academy of Art.

Her work has been published and exhibited internationally. Recent exhibitions include NARS Gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Steve Turner Gallery, The Jewish Museum and Indie Gallery. They have recently been published in BOMB, GRANTA, Erev Rav,and Lines Inside by TSA_PDF magazines. Aviv is a 2022 Workspace Artist-in-Residence at Center for Book Arts.

Lau Wai (劉衛)was born and raised in Hong Kong, and is currently based in New York. They utilize photography, moving image, new media, and installation to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory, and virtuality collide in the process of identity formation. Their research and material sources range from personal and historical archives to cinematic imagery and popularculture.

Their works are collected by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (United States); Alexander Tutsek – Stiftung Foundation (Germany) and M+ Museum (Hong Kong), among others. They have exhibited in Europe, Asia, and North America, including Brandts Museum of Art and Visual Culture, Denmark (2016); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2015, 2018); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019, 2021); Kuandu Biennale, Taiwan (2018); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan (2015); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States (2019) and Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020).

Lau Wai, The Melting Armour, 2019, transparency film mounted on plexiglass, 48 x 70 inches

SARA RAHMANIAN

Sara Rahmanian

(b.1993,Tehran,Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist fascinated by everyday objects and the absurdity of contemporary life. She uses painting to explore the imaginative gaps between reality and perception.

She paints on coffee filters or canvas. She draws from first-person perspectives, defamiliarizing the mundane to invite a heightened sense of contemplation about our surroundings. Painting is her go-to medium for playing hide and seek with objects, but more often than not, the process surprises her!

Sara Rahmanian, Untitled, 2021. Acrylic on canvas 24h x 18w inches

NOOSHIN ROSTAMI

Nooshin Rostami is an artist, designer, and educator. They use a glossary of materials and terms: light, shadows, reflections, structures, landscape, space, and place. They refer to these vocabularies within different physical and metaphorical contexts to construct poetic and sometimes political narratives. Through installation, sculpture, and performance-based work, Rostami activates indoor or outdoor spaces in which the audience is encouraged to experience space as an exploration of the interrelationship between shadows, physical objects, and their reflections ultimately pointing to ways of seeing that cultivate curiosity, close observation, and multitudes of perspectives.

Rostami received an MFA from Brooklyn College CUNY in NY (2011) and has exhibited in solo and international group settings including California Museum of Photography-UCR ARTS (2019), Jardines de Mexico (2019), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions-LACE (2018), Queens Museum(2018), among others. They were awarded the visiting artist fellowship at Urban Glass in New York City in 2022. Since 2014 they have participated in multiple residencies such as BRIC Art Media and Art Omi.

Nooshin Rostami, Objects of Light and Reflection Laboratory, 2018, wood, reflective film, paint, steel, glass, 40 x 40 x 16 inches

NIC VILLAROSA

Nic Villarosa is a recent college graduate and multi-disciplinaryartist living and working in Brooklyn NY. Their practice includes filmmaking (16 mm), metal work, dance, cooking, and drawing inspired by radical Black artists including the wisdoms of Toni Morrison, Marlon Riggs, Cheryl Dunye, and Octavia Butler. Nic uses all the named mediums along with queer and race theory, fantasy, abolition, and transhumanism to cultivate an experimental art making process. In addition, they are a community organizer with a hyperlocal abolitionist focused on finding alternatives to policing through direct action, mutual aid, and webs of community care called The Crown Heights Care Collective.

Nic Villarosa, Internal Garden, 2020, single channel video

Nic Villarosa, Seeing Double, 2020, steel and aluminum, 3 ft x 1.5 ft x 1 ft

ARI WOLFF

Ari Wolff is an artist, writer, and educator based in Queens, NY. Ari’s work explores language as a visual object and proposes alternative modes of reading through marking, xerography, sculpture, text, and book forms.

Ari is the Studio Director at the 14th Street Y and a 2023 MFA Candidate at Queens College.

Ari Wolff, Ways of Taking a Breath, 2022, ink on paper, 22 x 30 inches

Ari Wolff, Semantic Knots, 2022, polymer clay, nylon thread, nails, paper roll, varied dimensions

TIN WAI WONG

Tin Wai Wong is a multimedia artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Wong’s work has been shown in many countries across the world, with the purpose of investigating the artist’s morals via translation, transcription and communication.

Wong’s material includes video, rugs, wallpaper, installation and performative actions.

Tin Wai Wong, Manifesto, 2020, 3-channel video, 15 minutes

Tin Wai Wong, Manifesto 2, 2020, vinyl, varied dimensions

UNTOLD NARRATIVESA SEDUCTIVE ECHO

All works courtesy of the artists unless otherwise noted.

Roni Aviv

Small Talk, 2019

Site-specific photo installation

Varied dimensions

Lau Wai

The Melting Armour, 2019

Transparency film mounted on plexiglass

48 x 70 inches

Lau Wai

Feed 3.0, 2021

3-channel HD video

(color, sound, looped)

4 minutes 45 seconds

Sara Rahmanian

Untitled, 2020

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 18 inches

Sara Rahmanian

Lunch Time, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

60 x 36 inches

Sara Rahmanian

Delicious, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 18 inches

Sara Rahmanian

The Knee, 2020

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 18 inches

Sara Rahmanian

Untitled, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 18 inches

Tin Wai Wong

Manifesto, 2020

3-channel video

15 minutes

Tin Wai Wong

Manifesto 2, 2020

Vinyl

Varied Dimensions

Nic Villarosa

Seeing Double, 2020

Steel & Aluminum

3 ft x 1.5 ft x 1 ft

Nic Villarosa

Internal Garden, 2020

Single channel video

Ari Wolff

Uncharted Pauses, 2022

Ink on paper 22 x 30 inches

Ari Wolff

Uncharted Pauses, 2022

Ink on paper 22 x 30 inches

Ari Wolff

Semantic Knots, 2022

Polymer clay, nylon thread, nails, paper roll

Varied dimensions

Nooshin Rostami

Objects of Light and Reflection

Laboratory, 2018

Wood, reflective film, paint, steel, glass

40 x 40 x 16 inches

The Bronx Council on the Arts is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Arts Midwest and the National Endowment for the Arts; the Coalition of Theaters of Color; the Cultural Immigrant Initiative; City Council Members Eric Dinowitz and Marjorie Velázquez; Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson; NYS Assemblymember Michael Benedetto and the NYS Division of Criminal Justice; and the Hispanic Federation, the City of New York, and the Department of Youth and Community Development. Also supported in part by the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Booth Ferris Foundation, the Altman Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Amazon, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the New Yankee Stadium Community Benefits Fund, the Tiger Baron Foundation, and Con Edison. Special thanks to Hostos Community College and the Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture for their support.

Bronx Council on the Arts

2700 E Tremont Ave Bronx, New York 10461 www. bronxarts.org

@BronxArtsOrg