Bodies of Work
361 Days, 2017, by Jamie Diamond
Bodies of Work
Marina Berio, Patty Chang, Lenka Clayton, Jamie Diamond, Nona Faustine, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Cao Yu
Curated by Corinne May Botz
Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 | 6:30-8:30pm
Exhibition dates: April 16 – April 27, 2019
Coffee Talks: Tuesday, April 16 and Saturday, April 27, | 11am
Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York and the National YoungArts Foundation is pleased to present Bodies of Work, a group show curated by Corinne Botz that considers maternal experiences, with works by contemporary artists Marina Berio, Patty Chang, Lenka Clayton, Jamie Diamond, Nona Faustine, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Cao Yu. The artworks are stylistically diverse and incorporate a range of approaches, exploring inter-related themes including the body, time, politics, love, attachment, and separation. Normative and coherent ideals of motherhood are challenged, and the maternal is considered as a vital political force.
There has been a surge of artworks, books, and articles about motherhood over the past few years. To paraphrase a recent Paris Review article by Lauren Elkin, motherhood is finally being taken seriously in wider arts and a canon of motherhood is beginning to take shape. The subject of motherhood is urgent in the current political climate where there is a need to guarantee women control over their bodies. Women have begun to speak more candidly about health issues and biological processes that have in the past been cloaked in secrecy. Recent news articles have revealed bias against pregnant women and mothers in the workplace, and in spring 2018 the United States stunned the world when it declined to back a seemingly uncontroversial resolution to support breastfeeding in underdeveloped countries. For much of art history the subject of mothers were represented by men. Earlier generations of female artists often chose a career over motherhood or steered clear of explicitly addressing motherhood in their work because it was dismissed.
In this exhibition, maternal experiences, both overtly and obliquely, are transmitted into works that challenge preconceptions about being a mother and artist, while acknowledging the continued lack of resources and obstacles. The artists in Bodies of Work contribute something new to representations of motherhood, and offer an opportunity to delve deeper into the multiplicities that shape us.
Corinne May Botz is a Brooklyn-based artist and educator whose work engages with themes including space, gender, trauma and the body. Her published books combining photography and writing include The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (Monacelli Press, 2004) and Haunted Houses (Monacelli Press, 2010). Botz’s photographs have been internationally exhibited at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Contemporary Photography; De Appel; Turner Contemporary; Bellwether Gallery; and Benrubi Gallery. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Foam Magazine, Hyperallergic, Bookforum, and Time: Lightbox. She has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; Atlantic Center for the Arts; Akademie Schloss Solitude; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Mana Contemporary. Botz is the recipient of both the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Jerome Foundation grants. Botz is represented by Benrubi Gallery in NYC.
Marina Berio is a visual artist from New York City who works with drawings and photography to convey aspects of visual experience that are intimate and visceral. Berio earned her MFA in Photography at Bard. She has been awarded grants by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Pollock/Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Aaron Siskind Foundation. She has exhibited at various art spaces internationally, including Michael Steinberg Fine Arts, Von Lintel Gallery, Smack Mellon, and Artists Space in New York; Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art in Boston; Les Rencontres d’Arles, Galerie Camera Obscura in Paris; and Otto Zoo and Acta International in Italy.
Patty Chang is an artist working in performance, video, writing, and installation. Her work has a capacity to explore complex subjects nearly simultaneously, as does life. Born in 1972 in San Leandro, California, Chang received her BA from the University of California, San Diego, in 1994. Her work has been exhibited nationwide and internationally at such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; New Museum; BAK, Basis voor actuele Kunst; the Hammer Museum; Fri Art Centre d’Art de Freibourg; Chinese Arts Centre; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the M+ Museum; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Moderna Museet. Her work received a 2003 award from the Rockefeller Foundation and a 2012 Creative Capital award. In 2008, she was a finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize and a Guna S. Mundheim Fellow in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2014, Chang was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. Her acclaimed exhibition “Patty Chang: The Wandering Lake 2009-2017” travels to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2019. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Lenka Clayton is an interdisciplinary artist based in Pittsburgh, PA whose work considers, exaggerates and alters the accepted rules of everyday life, extending the familiar into the realm of poetic and absurd. Clayton received an MA in Documentary Direction from the National Film and Television School in the UK and a BA in Fine Arts from Central St. Martins. She is the founder of An Artist Residency in Motherhood, a self-directed, open-source artist residency program that takes place inside the homes and lives of artists who are also parents. Clayton has exhibited her work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, FRAC Le Plateau, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria and the Iran International Documentary Festival, among other places.
Jamie Diamond is a photo-based artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Diamond is a recipient of the Artist in Residence program at Mass Moca and Skidmore College (2016), the NYFA Fellowship Award in Photography (2014), Artist in Residence at The Bronx Museum (2014), Artist in Residence at the Mana Residencies program at Mana Contemporary (2014), LMCC Swing Space residency (2013), LMCC Work Space residency (2008-2009) and the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship Award (2008). Diamond’s work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, artnet, AnOther Magazine, Muse Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Aperture, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Phaidon, among others.
Nona Faustine is a photographer and visual artist born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Faustine has a B.F.A from SVA, and an M.F.A from ICP-Bard. Her work focuses on history, identity, and representation, evoking a critical and emotional understanding of the past and proposes a deeper examination of contemporary racial and gender stereotypes. Faustine has exhibited work at Harvard University, Studio Museum of Harlem, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn Museum, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Higher Pictures, The International Center of Photography, and many other institutions. Her work is in the collection of the David C. Driskell Center at Maryland State University, Studio Museum of Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, and Carnegie Museum in Pennsylvania.
Alison Elizabeth Taylor received her M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2005. Solo shows include The Backwards Forward at James Cohan Gallery LES in 2017, Savage Root at the Musée Historique, Chateau de Nyon, in Switzerland, and Un/Inhabited at SCAD. Her work has also been exhibited in group shows at the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Art and Design, Peabody Essex Museum, National Academy Museum, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, and in the First International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Cartagena, Colombia. Taylor’s work is included in the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Taylor has received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and the Smithsonian’s Artist Research Fellowship Program Award. Taylor lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has recently been featured in the new book Landscape Painting Now.
Cao Yu was born in Liaoning, China in 1988 and lives and works in Beijing. She received a BFA and MA in Sculpture from Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. Her recent major group exhibitions are Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York (2019); Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (2019); Zhuzhong Art Museum, Beijing (2018); Martina Tauber Fine Art, Munich (2018); Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing (2018); Diskurs Berlin (2017); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016). She was awarded Young Artist of the Year, 12th AAC Award of Art China (2018); Third Prize at Central Academy of Fine Arts Graduates Outstanding Exhibition, Beijing (2011). Her works are in the collection of M+ Collection, Hong Kong; Zhuzhong Art Museum, Beijing; Si Shang Art Museum, Beijing; Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, Beijing.
About the YoungArts | Baxter St Residency Program
This exhibition is the culmination of the second year of the YoungArts | Baxter St Residency Program. Baxter St invites emerging lens-based artists to apply for the residency that provides alumni of the YoungArts Program living in New York City the opportunity of a two month residency with workspace accessibility at Baxter St, access for one month to darkrooms at the International Center of Photography, an artist stipend, and mentoring sessions with 2-3 Art Advisory Committee members. The residency results in a two week solo show at Baxter St. As a resident in this program, artists will gain hands on experience, be counseled and supported by specialists in their field of study and work closely with Baxter St in order to present a solo show, which for most residents will be their first exhibition.
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The National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison to identify and nurture the most accomplished young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts, and assist them at critical junctures in their educational and professional development. Through a wide range of annual programs, performances and partnerships with some of the nation’s leading cultural institutions, YoungArts aspires to create a strong community of alumni and a platform for a lifetime of encouragement, opportunity and support.
