EXODUS VIII: Off the Cloth

Curated by: Karen Cordero Reiman and Juan Puntes

March 25 – May 4, 2022

March 25 Installation premiere starts

Opening Reception: April 1, 5-8 PM

Fist Panel Discussion video: Simonetta Moro, Yohanna M Roa, Curators: Karen Cordero R and Juan Puntes.

Second Panel Discussion Video: Isolde Kille, Sandra Eula Lee, Shiva Lynn Burgos and Eva Petric

Review: WhiteHot Magazine. Off the Cloth at WhiteBox, By ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST

Off the Cloth, curated by Juan Puntes and Karen Cordero Reiman, inaugurates the new downtown location of Whitebox. The exhibit forms a part of Whitebox’s ongoing “Exodus” series highlighting the work of émigré artists living and working in New York City.

First-panel discussion with artist and curators: Simonetta Moro, Yohanna M Roa, Karen Cordero and Juan Puentes

The show will present an intergenerational dialogue between thirteen women artists whose work refers to their transcultural heritage through the use of or reference to textiles as material and metaphor, and will have a six-week run from the end of March through mid-May 2022. The goal of the exhibit is to establish a sense of communion between the artists’ practice and the audience’s sense of identity, as a consequence of shared cultural, gender-bound or social experiences. Off the Cloth will also include panel discussions with the artists, performances and other activities that will contribute to an active interchange with the community.

“G*psies Picnic: The Feast of Those Gone By” Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow performing in a gown she created out of Gingham tablecloths typically found in local bargain stores accessorized with a basket of local and exotic fruits intended to be served. In this piece, she reflects on colonial pastimes, tourism, and leisure activities all based around the concept of Spring /Summer gatherings.

_{Click the Video performance of Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow at WhiteBox. “G*psies Picnic: The Feast of Those Gone By” Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow performing in a gown she created out of Gingham tablecloths typically found in local bargain stores accessorized with a basket of local and exotic fruits intended to be served. In this piece, she reflects on colonial pastimes, tourism, and leisure activities all based around the concept of Spring /Summer gatherings.}

These artists use aesthetics as the ultimate weapon of political resistance in the face of a fragile and tumultuous world, stitching together our differences. In their work, textiles, combined with other disciplines and media, become a vehicle or reference point for exuberant narratives. The selection highlights the diversity of the participants’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and engages in and broadens the timeless dialogue between craft and art. Women’s artistic deployment of skills such as sewing, knitting, and weaving, that are traditionally relegated to the status of domestic craft and separated from “high art”, are celebrated and embraced here without condition.

_{Yohanna M. Roa’s installation and performance piece “The Big Tortilla of Green Time”, based on a native Mexican recipe using wild weeds, commonly found plants and herbs. The artist’s apron combines pages of an art history book with embroidered flora as a reflection of the ways in which conventional structures of historical time are dislocated and re-signified when seen from a perspective of female experience, poverty and non-Western culture.}

The exhibit will also generate spaces and a variety of instances for multi-directional conversations between the participants and with the curators and other interlocutors, in order to enrich and expand the dialogue generated by the show.

Participating Artists:

Shiva Lynn Burgos | Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow | Blanka Amezkua | Christine Davis |

Eva Petric | Yohanna Roa | Amanda Valdez | Lilia Ziamou