“Untold Narratives - A Seductive Echo”
By Sunny NagpaulThere’s no doubt that speech is one of the most powerful tools people have for connection. But in the face of some of the country’s most dividing issues, like disability, sexuality, gender identity or immigration, language can quickly become divisive, and weaponized through slurs and stereotypes.
Artists at the Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos’ latest exhibition, titled “Untold Narratives - A Seductive Echo,” seem to have the same question on their mind. When language hurts people more than it helps, how can we still understand each other?
Artist Ari Wolff was thinking about the parts of conversations that are unmapped while making ink drawings and a large sculpture of knots, titled “Semantic Knots,” which are on display at the gallery. “So much of our communication is via text or email,” Wolff said. “There are unspoken or un-languagable things that are happening.”
The sculpture was a two-year project, on display for the first time, and is also the fruit of her first foray into sculpting. “It started as a knot in my stomach,” Wolff said. The sculpture consists of hundreds of indigo-colored polymer clay knots, suspended individually from the ceiling, that cast circular shadows on a large roll of white paper behind them.
The knots are unable to perform its main purpose of holding things together–a concept that Wolff thought strikes a semblance to her struggles with reading. “I was thinking about learning how to read and some of the struggles that I had, and how to show this invisible thing, and the shadows that exist and move towards it.”
Wolff is also a writer and educator based in Queens, whose work is about normalizing different ways of seeing. “It’s harder to talk about or write about,” she said. “This is the place I make art from.”
Curator Michelle Song believes many artists think about the limits of traditional communication. “Especially when, for example, you’re in the diaspora and you’re trying to explain yourself to others. That hits a wall sometimes,” she said.
The exhibition’s theme is based on the Roman myth of Echo and Narcissus, the story of a speechless nymph who falls in love with a man that is infatuated with his own reflection.
Through the repetition of his words, Echo forms a language of her own, while Narcissus remains obsessed with the image he fails to recognize as his own.
Song combined themes of translation, misinterpretation, and self-reflection to assemble a fresh, personal look at the disorientation people face when they need to adopt a new language. “A lot of the artists in this show are working with very intimate themes, reflecting upon themselves,” Song said.
For artist and model Nic Villarosa, the exhibition is also their first art show.
Villarosa’s sculpture, titled “Seeing Double,” used to be a dream catcher that was posted above their bed. It stands now as a sleek outline of a head, positioned in front of a light, with flints of metal shaped to look like eyes, a nose, and mouth, hanging from the outline with thread. It casts a shadow of a face on the wall behind it.
Villarosa’s inspiration came from a trip they took with their father to the mountains. “I was hiking in the Andes in Peru with my father, and kind of started to think more seriously about my gender and femininity,” Villarosa said. “If it tells you anything about our relationship, I say that I’m afraid I’ll become him in my film.”
Unable to express their thoughts to their father, Villarosa paid close attention to the mountains and imagined shapes that looked like faces and hands. They also learned about the art of the Moche people, a pre-Incan civilization that used to live in that part of Northern Peru. “I tried to replicate the spirit of the way that the Moche would create sculptures as adornment to their emperors and kings.”
The piece struck nostalgia with attendee Ant Morgan, who admired Villarosa’s inspiration and their use of light and shadow. “I’ve never seen a light on an image to create something else, other than a flashlight when we were little kids, you know? With our fingers. I’ve never seen it in an art museum.”
Morgan, who practices spoken word poetry, came to the gallery to meet artists who may be similar to him. “What brought me here tonight was the fact that it was an erotic piece, and my performance poetry style is, I call it spicy,” Morgan said. “I came to see the beautiful artwork and network with the artists.”
The back room of the gallery, dimly lit and equipped with a carpet and cushions on the floor, streamed Hong Kong-born artist Tin Wai Wong’s video piece, titled, “Manifesto,” on three walls. The artist’s second piece, rugs that were printed with slogans like, ‘Intuition is Survival,’ was also mounted on the walls.
The manifesto begins with deceptive simplicity as the artist talks about her early experiences in America. As she expresses expectations she faced as a Chinese artist, her monologue shifts
and turns, with some moments frayed by nervous laughter, and others dark with anger over the fetishization many Asians face in America.
“My interaction with people here is that when they realize I am a Chinese female, I’m expected to make a lot of stuff, but my stuff wasn’t one of them,” Wong said. “I’m expected to make them feel horny, I’m supposed to yearn for help.”
Wong is currently based in Brooklyn and also teaches Chinese. For her, physically displaying her art can be morally challenging when she considers the atmosphere of typical art galleries. “In an opening, everybody walks around like they’re in a fashion show. “I straightened my hair for this,” Wong said. “As a viewer, how are you going to let the most vulnerable part of your heart out and see this work?”
It is a piece she says was made only for American viewers and aims to reveal the contention new immigrants face between holding onto their language, food, and culture while also adopting those of their new location.
“I’m never built to speak English,” Wong said. “As long as I look like this, it doesn't matter how I say it. I can speak it perfectly but as long as I’m speaking for them, they hear me moaning.”
Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos, the visual arts component of the Bronx Council on the Arts Longwood Arts Project, is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 12:00-6:00 pm, and admission is free. The exhibition closes on Wednesday, February 22nd . Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos is located at 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10451.
The gallery’s website is found here: https://www.bronxarts.org/programs/connector/longwood-art-project/longwood-art-gallery