New Museum in New York Presents Mire Lee’s “Black Sun,” Mechanical Movements with Emotional Expressions.. and More
USA_New York
New Museum in New York Presents Mire Lee’s “Black Sun,” Mechanical Movements with Emotional Expressions
The New Museum in New York presents “Mire Lee: Black Sun” through September 17. Mire Lee (b. 1988) is a South Korean sculptor whose recent international exhibitions include the renowned Pittsburgh Carnegie International, the Busan Biennale, and the Venice Biennale. “Black Sun” is the artist’s first museum solo exhibition in the United States.
Lee uses low-tech motors, pumping systems, steel rods, and PVC hoses filled with oil, glycerin, and silicone as materials. Her sculptures drip, pulsate, wriggle, twist, and metamorphose like living organisms or biological machines. The artist is influenced by architecture, horror films, pornography, and cybernetics, and is acclaimed for her approach of using mechanical movement to express emotional states.
The title of the exhibition is brought from Julia Kristeva’s (b. 1941) 1987 book of the same name, a study of depression and melancholia. In this exhibition, the artist expresses emotional emptiness and psychological tension through site-specific installations consisting of architectural settings, kinetic sculptures, and textile works.
USA_New York
In MoMA PS1, Liu Susiraja Presents Mesmerizingly Absurd Performance Photographs
Liu Susiraja (b. 1975) is a Finnish-born photographer currently having her first U.S. solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 in New York. “Liu Susiraja: A style called a dead fish” is on view through September 4.
Since 2007, Susiraja has been taking photographs of herself in her home in Turku, Finland, where she performs private performances in front of the camera. Often exposing bare skin, the artist looks deadpan, staring at the lens and posing alone, creating absurd and humorous scenes using household objects such as tablecloths, umbrellas, hot dogs, bananas, rubber ducks, and dead fish. Her work is simultaneously mesmerizing and repulsive, drawing the viewer in with a bold yet vulnerable impression. Instead of using artificial light intending dramatic effect, she uses natural or minimal lighting without embellishment, and this naturalness reinforces the juxtaposition of comfort and anxiety in her everyday scenes.
USA_San Francisco
In de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Kehinde Wiley Presents Stumbled Black Figures in Classic Postures with Modern Glamour
American portraitist Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977) draws on motifs from classical masters to create hyper-realistic black portraits. The de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco presents “Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence” through October 15. The show premiered at the 2022 Venice Biennale before it arrived in San Francisco.
In 2008, Wiley created the ‘Down’ series, portraits of young black men reclining, inspired by the 16th-century German master Hans Holbein the Younger’s painting ‘The Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521-1522).’ Expanding of ‘Down’ series, he recently depicted black figures lying on the ground in paintings and sculptures. The artist investigated how the iconography of death and sacrifice in Western classical art relates to mythological, religious, and historical themes, and utilized them in his portraits of black people.
The fallen figures posed as heroes, martyrs, and saints denounce systemic violence against Black people and the silence surrounding it. At the same time, costumes of Nike, Adidas, and Louis Vuitton, as well as primary-colored backgrounds, give Wiley’s figures a contemporary glamour.
