Catalina Ouyang / Marrow
27 September – 30 November, 2019
Make Room
1035 N Broadway
Los Angeles
Make
Room presents marrow, the gallery’s
second solo show of new works by Catalina Ouyang. The exhibition includes sculptures
that integrate abandoned chairs with heads made of carved stone, plaster, and
bacterial skin; a soapstone figure looking into a mirror; alabaster sculptures;
and a single-channel video installed on the ceiling of an unfinished attic,
among other new works. marrow opens
on Friday, September 27, 2019, from 6-9 pm and is on view through November 30,
2019.
Room presents marrow, the gallery’s
second solo show of new works by Catalina Ouyang. The exhibition includes sculptures
that integrate abandoned chairs with heads made of carved stone, plaster, and
bacterial skin; a soapstone figure looking into a mirror; alabaster sculptures;
and a single-channel video installed on the ceiling of an unfinished attic,
among other new works. marrow opens
on Friday, September 27, 2019, from 6-9 pm and is on view through November 30,
2019.
Ouyang’s
oeuvre is situated in a framework of revisionist storytelling that resists
essentialist metrics for navigating social space. In marrow, Ouyang builds on previous works to elaborate themes that
confront language, space, and the power relations embedded within them.
oeuvre is situated in a framework of revisionist storytelling that resists
essentialist metrics for navigating social space. In marrow, Ouyang builds on previous works to elaborate themes that
confront language, space, and the power relations embedded within them.
Leaning
on cross-cultural myths about stone and stoning—including the Gorgons, Biblical
punishment, the Waiting Stone, and Ahalya—Ouyang develops a visual landscape of
characters that instigate unfamiliarity and uncertainty. Ouyang carves stone as
a way to feel into mythologies in which bodies are cursed or frightened into
petrification, calling up questions of agency, resistance, and loss. Ouyang
repeatedly returns her inquiry to the question of language and its departure
from a body transformed.
on cross-cultural myths about stone and stoning—including the Gorgons, Biblical
punishment, the Waiting Stone, and Ahalya—Ouyang develops a visual landscape of
characters that instigate unfamiliarity and uncertainty. Ouyang carves stone as
a way to feel into mythologies in which bodies are cursed or frightened into
petrification, calling up questions of agency, resistance, and loss. Ouyang
repeatedly returns her inquiry to the question of language and its departure
from a body transformed.
In
a series titled crisis management
(2019), four decapitated heads of plaster and stone balance on the seats of
altered chairs. Several of the heads are missing eyes, gesturing to a moment of
wounding or theft. Their necks are hollowed out, creating vessels, and they are
wrapped in translucent skins made from symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast
(colloquially known as “mothers”). In a simultaneity of rupture and mending,
the chair legs have been bisected, extended with steel rebar and plaster, then
wrapped in white cloth. The legs and chair backs have been hacked into
pencil-like points. In risk assessment
(2019), resin-dipped nightgowns form the
unlikely surface of a school desk. Underneath the desk, a headless figure
kneels in a position of safety, lament, or prayer, extending one arm in a
defiant gesture; nearby, a Pieta-like figure cradles an illuminated security
camera filled with mothballs.
a series titled crisis management
(2019), four decapitated heads of plaster and stone balance on the seats of
altered chairs. Several of the heads are missing eyes, gesturing to a moment of
wounding or theft. Their necks are hollowed out, creating vessels, and they are
wrapped in translucent skins made from symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast
(colloquially known as “mothers”). In a simultaneity of rupture and mending,
the chair legs have been bisected, extended with steel rebar and plaster, then
wrapped in white cloth. The legs and chair backs have been hacked into
pencil-like points. In risk assessment
(2019), resin-dipped nightgowns form the
unlikely surface of a school desk. Underneath the desk, a headless figure
kneels in a position of safety, lament, or prayer, extending one arm in a
defiant gesture; nearby, a Pieta-like figure cradles an illuminated security
camera filled with mothballs.
These
objects come up to the edge of the place of where language exists, and instead
of speaking, they inhabit that edge. There is the sense that this silence is at
once an act of agency and loss, resistance and fatality. Within the visual
complexity Ouyang creates, the viewer is confronted by a powerlessness to
express what exists here: loss and violence; the darkened and illuminated
corners of myth; our own avatars and unfinished attics. The viewer’s experience
mirrors the objects’ rejection or incapacity of language, elevating
reminiscences of the places speech cannot go—trauma, grief, calamity.
objects come up to the edge of the place of where language exists, and instead
of speaking, they inhabit that edge. There is the sense that this silence is at
once an act of agency and loss, resistance and fatality. Within the visual
complexity Ouyang creates, the viewer is confronted by a powerlessness to
express what exists here: loss and violence; the darkened and illuminated
corners of myth; our own avatars and unfinished attics. The viewer’s experience
mirrors the objects’ rejection or incapacity of language, elevating
reminiscences of the places speech cannot go—trauma, grief, calamity.
The
viewer situates in paradox: agency with loss, death with transformation. The
works create a constellatory effect that simultaneously builds the viewer’s
informational context and perpetuates the forms’ evasion of definition. Ouyang
is invested in the power relations of a scene, and the ways that proprioception
is present, politicized, and usually unspoken. Though defamiliarized, the
objects gesture toward the domestic and utilitarian spaces of school and home.
The sculptures present conspiratorially, as though Ouyang offers them as an
invitation to risk—the risk of participating in a viewing process that requires
us to be with the incapacities of petrification. This is not a performance or
mark of cynicism; it is a conversation among artworks, space, and viewer,
instigated by Ouyang, about the forms that live after trauma, and the question
of what existence is, and is capable of transforming.
viewer situates in paradox: agency with loss, death with transformation. The
works create a constellatory effect that simultaneously builds the viewer’s
informational context and perpetuates the forms’ evasion of definition. Ouyang
is invested in the power relations of a scene, and the ways that proprioception
is present, politicized, and usually unspoken. Though defamiliarized, the
objects gesture toward the domestic and utilitarian spaces of school and home.
The sculptures present conspiratorially, as though Ouyang offers them as an
invitation to risk—the risk of participating in a viewing process that requires
us to be with the incapacities of petrification. This is not a performance or
mark of cynicism; it is a conversation among artworks, space, and viewer,
instigated by Ouyang, about the forms that live after trauma, and the question
of what existence is, and is capable of transforming.
-Maura Pellettieri, 2019
Artist
Bio
Bio
Catalina
Ouyang’s solo exhibitions include: fish mystery in the shift horizon at Rubber
Factory (New York, NY); blood in D minor at Selena Gallery (Brooklyn, NY);
DEATH DRIVE JOY RIDE at Make Room (Los Angeles, CA); sister, destroyer, lover
at Trestle Projects (Brooklyn, NY); and an elegy for Marco at the Millitzer
Gallery (St. Louis, MO). Her recent group show includes: Helena Anrather (New
York, NY), Anonymous Gallery (Mexico City, Mexico), fffriedrich (Frankfurt, Germany),
Kravets Wehby (New York, NY)and others. Ouyang has attended residencies at the
NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach,
FL), and Shandaken: Storm King (New Windsor, NY). Her work has been reviewed
and featured in Artforum, Hyperallergic, Office Magazine, Musee Magazine, and
artnet news. Ouyang holds an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University and is based
in Brooklyn, NY.
Ouyang’s solo exhibitions include: fish mystery in the shift horizon at Rubber
Factory (New York, NY); blood in D minor at Selena Gallery (Brooklyn, NY);
DEATH DRIVE JOY RIDE at Make Room (Los Angeles, CA); sister, destroyer, lover
at Trestle Projects (Brooklyn, NY); and an elegy for Marco at the Millitzer
Gallery (St. Louis, MO). Her recent group show includes: Helena Anrather (New
York, NY), Anonymous Gallery (Mexico City, Mexico), fffriedrich (Frankfurt, Germany),
Kravets Wehby (New York, NY)and others. Ouyang has attended residencies at the
NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach,
FL), and Shandaken: Storm King (New Windsor, NY). Her work has been reviewed
and featured in Artforum, Hyperallergic, Office Magazine, Musee Magazine, and
artnet news. Ouyang holds an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University and is based
in Brooklyn, NY.
Make
Room
Room
Make
Room is a contemporary art gallery in Los Angeles founded by Emilia Yin and Liaoyuan
Huang in January 2018. The gallery presents a diverse program of artists
through concept-oriented and space-based experimental practices in a variety of
media. With the sister gallery Beijing Art Now in China, Make Room presents the
Los Angeles debut of emerging and mid-career international artists. Make Room
will be participating in the second edition of Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles in
2020.
Room is a contemporary art gallery in Los Angeles founded by Emilia Yin and Liaoyuan
Huang in January 2018. The gallery presents a diverse program of artists
through concept-oriented and space-based experimental practices in a variety of
media. With the sister gallery Beijing Art Now in China, Make Room presents the
Los Angeles debut of emerging and mid-career international artists. Make Room
will be participating in the second edition of Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles in
2020.
Special
thanks to Wilhardt & Naud and Shandaken: Storm King Residency, and Maura
Pellettieri.
thanks to Wilhardt & Naud and Shandaken: Storm King Residency, and Maura
Pellettieri.