Off The Cloth, Part II

Curated by Karen Cordero R and Yohanna M. Roa

Jan 9 – Feb 11, 2023

Tuesday – Saturday 12 PM-6 PM

Opening Reception: January 12th. 6- 8 PM

^{Detail of Opening}. ^{Eleni Mylonas}, ^{SeaMonster Monk Performance video}

Artists:

Heather Bause Rubinstein, Laura Anderson Barbata, Lina Puerta, Margaret Lanzetta, Sonja Blum, Julia Justo, Eleni Mylonas, Ana Garces Kiley, Ophelia Arc.

Recent artistic work and multidisciplinary reflections, often in the light of gender studies, have spawned diverse initiatives that highlight and revalue the role of textiles, knitting, and embroidery in creative processes and the ways in which these media contribute distinctive creative methodologies and modes of signification. Their time-based and corporeal qualities establish connections with historical and cultural antecedents and produce transformations in the realms of affect and meaning that suggest innovative models of social coexistence and interaction, frequently breaking with conventional horizons of expectation regarding the hierarchical relationship between art and craft; the uses and/or combinations of artistic media; habitual markers for gender, class and ethnicity; and models of political art.

Ana Garces Kiley
**“La Gran Mama (Pachamama)”**
Ink on lutrador, with thread and damask cotton. Installation.
40” x 60” with 15’ draping voile, ceiling. 2022. courtesy of the artist

This second part of Off the Cloth, like its predecessor that inaugurated WhiteBox’s new space in March 2022, presents an intergenerational dialogue between women artists whose work refers to their transcultural influences through the use of textiles as material and metaphor. It further develops some of the topics that emerged from the first show, among them: textiles as a performative medium; textile works as a vehicle for social memory; textiles and ecofeminism; and textiles and intermediality.

^{Detail view of Exhibition}

^{Ophelia ArcIn Carnage: The Act of Starvation
In carnage: the act of starvationTextile sculpture – installationYarn, wire and meat hook on rotatorDim: 72’’ x 16’’ x 96’’2022}

^{Ana Garces Kiley“We Come from Continuous Line…” Acrylic, ink, and thread on lutrador and pink, transparent vinyl; round box cover made. Book is a 12” diameter circle and box cover is a 13” diameter circle; 2006, courtesy of the artist}

The show presents the work of nine artists based in New York City but with personal and creative links to Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Greece, Bosnia, India, Singapore, and Thailand, as well as to different parts of the United States. In their multidisciplinary production, textile materials and references from diverse contexts are combined with a variety of media and processes, including painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance, artist’s books, and participatory social practice, as well as with the fields of anthropology, journalism, psychoanalysis, memory and trauma studies, and pedagogy. Their pieces address aesthetic issues such as ephemerality, relational language, transformation, fragmentation, and transparency, and topics such as ancestral knowledge, cultural identity, community, intuition, and collaboration, as well as social and political aspects such as globalization, the destruction of our natural environment, sustainability, biodiversity, immigration, racial and gender violence, xenophobia, and hyper-consumerism.

^{Heather Bause RubinsteinIn memory of my feelings After Frank O’Hara, latex and acrylic paint stained and painted on found fabrics, bed sheets, other domestic textiles and materials, stitched together with a sewing machine, 84 x 120”, 2019-2020.}

Off the Cloth, Part II forms a part of WhiteBox’s ongoing “Exodus” series that aims to create a forum for a diversity of voices from women who strive for social, racial, and gender equity. It invites 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 and will also include panel discussions with the artists and other activities that contribute to an active interchange with the community.

Intervention: IndigoLaura Anderson Barbata, in collaboration with the Brooklyn Jumbies, ^{Chris Walker, and Jarana Beat, presented Intervention: Indigo on Sunday, September 13, 2015, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It was performed again in Mexico City in 2020 in collaboration with muca-Roma, Chris Walker, Los Diablos de la Costa de Guerrero Los Rebeldes de El Capricho, Elizabeth Ross, Danza UNAM and Pro-Alterne Teatro.}
^{Intervention: Indigo and Intervención: índigo CDMX is a project that combines procession, performance, dance, music, textile arts, costuming, ritual, improvised interactions with the audience, and protest. The work is a call to action to serve and protect and protest in response to the violence and murder at the hands of the police of Black people living in the United States and worldwide. The point of departure is the color Indigo, a dye used around the globe that has been associated with protection, wisdom and royalty.}