Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:00 - Sat May 23, 2015

Manhattan, New York
United States of America

The origin of life, leading to the birth of Eve according to the Old Testament, is an enduring cultural touchstone, a moral tale with abiding socio-mythological influence. This salient biblical narrative forms the framework for Lannie Hart’s Birth of Eve installation, on view at SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery from April 28 – May 23, 2015. Hart’s exhibition considers how, through the ages, the story has continued to snake its way through cultural attitudes towards women—the byproduct of humanity’s split. Even in contemporary society guided by experience rather than sentiment, the belief in creationism, and woman’s culpability in the fall from grace endures. The infamous breach has become an inheritance. Eve’s identity has become the female identity; women are ignominious creatures, seductive, ravenous, and susceptible to temptation. The installation on view is animated by a steady flow of water, hydrating life; its stability emphasized by a bed of rocks and pebbles while airborne leaves represent the inevitability of change. The work grapples with the juxtaposition of nature and mythology in regards to the beginnings of humanity. The piece is at once evocative of the ecosystem, and a distant remnant of utopia, a balance of power and fragility.
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Lannie Hart began her career as a soft sculptor, which culminated in a two person show at Julie Artisan’s Gallery. She has shown her work at the Museum for Contemporary Crafts in NYC. Her more current work has been shown at the Katonah Museum, Katonah, NY, Richmond Museum of Art, Richmond VA, The Sculptors Guild, Brooklyn

Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:00 - Sat May 23, 2015

Manhattan, New York
United States of America

To The Beat of Her Own Drum, on view at SOHO20 through May 23, presents an intimate audiovisual landscape that magnifies the boundaries of childhood experience. Through her exhibition, Carla Hernandez considers how children are far from passive participants in an adult world, highlighting a deep sensitivity to the emotional currents that pulse through their lives. The catalyst for Hernandez is her 9-year old niece, Veronica, whose portrait of vitality and spontaneity is captured in various iterations through the exhibited multimedia project.

Recording and documentation is instrumental to the exhibition’s narrative. Superimposed over one particular video footage are voicemails left by Veronica on Hernandez’s phone. With each recording, we are automatically reminded that “This message will be saved for 90 days…” On borrowed time, this audio becomes an artifact of memory; a descriptor of the chronal temperament of growing up, in the age of playback technology. In another video piece shown as a single projection, viewers see through Hernandez' camera as she trails behind Veronica, ambling along a winding park path. It is an irenic scene, almost hermetic, hovering between lucidity and dream.

At the same time, there is an echo of melancholy that, while alleviated some by the unseen presence of Hernandez with a camera, begins to outline a fragile and fragmented personal structur, articulated by drawings also on view. The drawings are bold repeated waveforms, derived from tracing the undulating pattern of EKG readings. The readings belong to Veronica, and two generations of ailing women before her - her mother and grandmother. Hernandez converts this familiar mute pattern of the human heart beat into a topographical map of the body’s immense physiological and emotional workload, carried and conveyed across three generations. The installation, layered and arranged organically, forms a pattern of responses to a family’s emotional and physical stresses, the impact acutely and undeniably absorbed by the youngest.
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Carla Hernandez was born in Newark, New Jersey and received her BA in Visual Art from Rutgers University. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and alternative spaces throughout New York and New Jersey including Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries, Kenkeleba Gallery, ABC No Rio, 292 Gallery and SOHO20 Chelsea, where she has been a member since 2009. In 2009 she was selected to perform in SOHO20's Savoir-Faire performance series and in 2010, received an Artist's Grant from the Vermont Studio Center. Hernandez lives and works in New York City.

Tue Mar 03, 2015 12:00 - Sat Mar 28, 2015

New York , New York
United States of America

On view from March 3 through 28th, 2015, at Soho20 Chelsea Gallery, Story of a Curse brings together Negin Sharfizadeh’s newest stop-motion animated film, Story of a Curse #1, and a series of sculptural works and hand-painted prints drawn out of the filmmaking process. There will be an opening reception from 6 to 8 pm on Thursday, March 5, and an artist talk in conversation with Aphrodite Désirée Navab, on Saturday March 28, at 2 pm.

Story of a Curse #1 was inspired by the story of the artist’s mother moving through loss and despair after the still birth of her first child and only son. Birth, the act of creating life, had become a deliverance of death. She came to believe that she had been cursed. The film explores the dreams of motherhood, the bond between a baby in the womb and the mother, and the role magic can play in our processes of grief and resilience.
Sharifzadeh has developed an organic suite of techniques, “making magic happen with projected light and found materials,” in the words of Lili White, founder of the AXWFFestival. She peels away the traditional sculptural methods of building and casting, and works with everything from needlework learned from her grandmother to assemblages of found objects, wire mesh, wax and plaster. Her animations, including a custom-built multi-planar animation stand incorporating layers of glass, are painstakingly constructed using these same elements. Through these methods, Sharifzadeh has found a resonance between the themes she is exploring and the works, allowing her stories to slip almost unconsciously into the materials through the obsessive actions of her hands creating.

For more information, please contact the gallery at 212-267-8994 or info@soho20gallery.com

Fri May 01, 2015 23:55

New York, New York
United States of America

SOHO20's new Residency Lab aims to foster open dialogue between working artist and visiting public. Cultivating possibilities of gallery as creative incubator, SOHO20's full exhibition space will be offered to a selected artist as a studio from July 21 – August 22, 2015. The program is designed to support the creation of new work, while offering opportunities to experiment with a studio practice on public view, and active interactions with daily visitors. The selected artist will be promoted through an individualized distributed postcard, as well as visibility on the SOHO20 website and email newsletters. The artist will have the opportunity to give an artist talk mid-way through the residency, and participate in the annual SOHO20 artist members' group show in December 2015.

Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:00

NEW YORK, New York
United States of America

SOHO20’s Three-month Studio Residency Program provides visual artistswith the space and community necessary to create, experiment and exchange ideas. With a focus on studio-based practice, the residency is an opportunity to develop a new body of work while engaging with the vibrant arts community in New York.

The individual studio space is located at 547 West 27th Street within SOHO20 gallery, in the heart of Chelsea. Its proximity to a major cultural hub encourages exposure and provides readily available access to an international contemporary art scene. Note that the studio residency is a work space only. The artist will be promoted through the gallery, and have the option to share work with art professionals and the public through open studios, studio visits and an artist talk.

Applications must be submitted by Tuesday, December 10, 2013. The Winter 2014 Application and Guidelines are currently available through our website.

To apply, please visit: http://soho20gallery.com/studio-residency-guidelines/