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Group Exhibition: Survival Tools for the Age of Ultra Anxiety

On view November 4th – November 28th, full schedule of events below.

LocationCulture Lab LIC at The Plaxall Gallery, 5-25 46th Ave, Queens, NY 11101
COVID 19 Protocol
Plaxall gallery is fully ADA accessible.

Participating Artists: 

Amy Fung-yi LeeBirgit RathmannCase JerniganClaire ChamblessDaniel MantillaDemarco MosbyDongjun KimEsteban AgosinJ. TriangularJee ParkJess BlausteinJoseph MorrisKeun-Young ParkKimberly LyleKim Sandra Lazaro Juan & Jordon SchranzMark RiceMatthew GarrisonNicki CherryNoa YekutieliPauline Galiana, Sana MusasamaSilliam BimsSiSi ChenStacy BogdonoffTravis ChildersWieteke HeldensWill Kaplan

Curated by Jeju Island Artist CollectiveEunsun Choi / Kyung-jin Kim / Yeon jin Kim

About the Exhibition

The exhibition “Survival Tools for the Age of Ultra Anxiety” takes as its premise the state of ultra-anxiety our culture is functioning within due to the pandemic and worldwide social and economic upheaval. It questions whether our endlessly competitive society, which rewards selfish behavior over altruism, has given us the tools needed to survive or whether artists are needed to lead us away from the brink of extinction.

This group exhibition proposes physical, emotional and psychological survival through adaptation to tactics, methods and tools central to artistic creation but commonly marginalized by societies focused on expediency and short term financial profit. Through gadgets, gizmos, interactive machinery and video narratives a course forward will be proposed that values and utilizes unfettered imagination, rampant invention, irrational systems, dream logic, humor and the impossible. This exhibition depends upon and makes the case for a world built on the notion that things are not fixed in their identities but are mutable and can be changed into other things.

Logic makes sense to us because we invented it to understand the world, but our environment has no responsibility to conform to our logical expectations and in fact does not, as quantum investigation makes clear. We must adapt to a reality much more complex and unpredictable than our rational viewpoint has presented in order to survive and flourish.

The group exhibition, “Survival Tools for an Age of Ultra-Anxiety’, will be emblematic of this crucial sea change in thought by embodying its values in diverse, challenging and liberating forms.

About the Curators

“Jeju Island Artist Collective” is an artistic collaborative team composed of Kyung-Jin Kim, Eunsun Choi and Yeon Jin Kim, all immigrants from South Korea living and working in New York City. Through our practice we exorcize universal fears and anxieties through humor, imagination and invention. Our work takes many forms but focuses on the effort to negotiate everyday reality and to fit into our adopted American culture. These efforts range from hopeless but earnest, to innocent and humorous, sometimes arriving at the poignantly affecting.

Throughout humorous inventions and contraptions Eunsun Choi’s work takes many forms but invariably comprises efforts to negotiate reality and her adopted American culture. Various anxieties and traumas are confronted and dealt with inventively and humorously.

Kyung-jin Kim utilizes interactive sound installations to explore the substance of liminality inherent to dislocation, translation and adjustment.

Yeon jin Kim enlists and adapts folk and craft traditions historically demeaned by male- dominant art education in a totalitarian society, to reveal and overturn repressive systems as well as video narratives.

Full Schedule of Events

November 6th, 6:00-9:00PM: Opening Reception – RSVP on Facebook

November 13th, 3:00-5:00PM“The spatial politics of control: social sculpture as a strategy of negotiation and resistance” Workshop by Claire Chambless – RSVP on Facebook

November 13th 5:30-7:30PM: Artist Talk with Claire Chambless, Matthew GarrisonNicki CherryShare on Facebook

November 14th, 5:30-7:30PM: Artist Talk (online) with Esteban AgosinJ. TriangularKimberly LyleMark RiceNoa YekutieliRSVP on WithFriends to receive Zoom information

November 19th, 5:30-7:30PM: Artist Talk with Amy Fung-yi LeeKeun-Young ParkSana Musasama and Stacy BogdonoffSiSi Chen, and Pauline GalianaShare on Facebook

November 20th, 3:00-5:00PM: Finding Poetry Workshop by Will KaplanShare on Facebook

November 20th, 5:30-7:30: Artist talk with Joseph MorrisKim SandraWieteke HeldensWill Kaplan, and Daniel Mantilla – Share on Facebook

November 21st, 10:00AM-12:00PM (online): Breathed poems for the camera” Workshop / Pedagogical laboratory by J. TriangularRSVP on WithFriends to receive Zoom information

Gallery hours:
Open to the public : November 4-28
Thursday – Friday 5:00 – 9:00PM
Saturday and Sunday 2:00 – 9:00PM

Flyer image creditEunsun Choi / Kyung-jin Kim / Yeon jin Kim

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