The lit.
diedrick brackens, soft, dark, demigod, 2021, woven cotton, acrylic yarn, and embroidered applique patches, 82 x 79 inches.
diedrick brackens, rhyming positions, Jack Shainman Gallery
While these weavings technically lay static, each is imbued with the potential for movement, collectively forming a choreography of figures caught in a graceful ebb and flow. Along with the tension between fixed and fluid, Brackens balances his outdoor exploration with a study on physical and metaphorical interiority. The sensuality so palpably felt in nature is equally invigorating in intimate domestic scenes of partnership. a year of assurances offers the tender act of bathing in commune, the two subjects’ limbs seamless, naturally, comfortably intertwined. This emotive feeling of care for the other continues in taste honey for nerves. Two central figures lean in to kiss, mirroring the two palm trees that sway just outside of their reach. A swarm of bees brings the outdoors in, blanketing the lovers within Bracken’s singular magical realist world.
Nick Cave, If a Tree Falls, Jack Shainman Gallery
The figure remains central as Cave casts his own body in bronze, an extension of the performative work so critical to his oeuvre. A palpable pressure can be felt as weighted body parts press into stacks of delicate handkerchiefs, speaking to the dichotomy of anger and grief as a result of violence. Challenging “who is free” and “who is brave,” American eagles perch atop the heads of black men, some caught in the midst of wrenching screams, only to be muted by the bronze cast pillows on which they lie. A suite of oversized bronze gramophones seamlessly grow from raised fists, luring us in with their unsettling silence and questioning how much power the citizens of this nation actually possess.
Cave reminds us, however, that while there may be despair, there remains space for hope and renewal. From these dismembered body parts stem delicate metal flowers, affirming the potential of new growth. Peace ribbons gently dangle from a series of outstretched finger tips, while in Unarmed (2018), a memorial wreath encircles a weaponless hand, raised and ready to shoot. A chain of linked bronze arms extends from ceiling to ground; it is up to us to decide – is this a downward gravitational heave, or do the figures pull one another upwards and out of the pile from which they have emerged? Cave encourages a profound and compassionate analysis of violence and its effects as the path towards an ultimate metamorphosis.
Nick Cave, Untitled, 2018, mixed media including vintage tole flowers, carved head, American flag pattern of used shotgun shells, cast bronze hand and arm, piano bench, white handkerchiefs, 77 3/4 x 30 7/8 x 16 3/8 inches.
Paul Anthony Smith, Slightly Pivoted to the Sun's Rhythm, 2018-19, unique picotage on inkjet print, oil stick, colored pencil and spray paint on museum board, 94 x 47 inches.
Paul Anthony Smith, Junction, Jack Shainman Gallery
Patterned in the style of Caribbean breeze block fences, modernist architectural elements function as timestamps and veils, meant both to obscure and to protect Smith’s subjects from external gaze. Images originally photographed by Smith both in Jamaica and New York City are rendered with tactile surfaces through his method of picotage layering. While photography typically functions as a way in which to reveal and share information, Smith’s picotage has a concealing and purposefully perplexing effect. Forcing these nuanced diasporic histories into a singular picture plane, Smith encourages layers of discomfort and unease among these outwardly jovial, if not banal, portraits. Picotage, then, serves as an access point as Smith interrogates which elements of identity are allowed to pass through the complexities of borders and migration. Amidst tensions, intricacies, and misidentifying gazes remains the power of community assembly – a reminder of the Jamaican coat of arms, which reads: “Out of many, one people.”