enigma

Joshua Hashemzadeh. Collection of Untitled Documents, 2016, dimensions variable (framed) , Archival Prints on Paper.  Image courtesy of artist.

Enigma is a group exhibition featuring drawings, painting, and photography by artists Jacqueline Glosman, Joshua Hashemzadeh, Ileana Tejada, and Chris Rivas. The show will open September 3, 2016, and remain on view through September 11. An opening reception will be held Saturday, September 3, 2016, from 7-10pm.  

The various works on display aim to address identity as a difficult to understand phenomena which, often is riddled with contradiction and ambiguity. The show, Enigma, brings these culturally diverse artists together to explore the canon of hybridity as a postmodern principal alluded to in contemporary literature such as “The Postmodern Animal” by Steven Baker.

“Neither the aesthetics of modernism nor the philosophical values of humanism, it is believed, can cope with hybrid forms which unsettle boundaries…In the values of modernism and modernity, it is now felt, there was a widespread urge to homogenize and systematize, to render the world intelligible by eliminating or suppressing inconsistencies, impurities, and dissimilarities.” – Steven Baker

The artists in this exhibition look to contrast modernist and traditional aesthetics to depict the body as the fore-mentioned “hybrid form” which pushes away from previously conceived homologous “boundaries.” Thus, implying we are not necessarily defined by one classification or another, as clear titles would easily suggest. Instead, identity traverses the spectrum of gender, race, and culture forming endless affirmations, making us who we are.  

By focusing on historical motifs such as textiles and drapery the figures become enthralled in various situations of concealment and reveal. This play on the seen and unseen portrays figures in a state of uncertainty and forces audiences to imagine cloaked or ambiguous forms through their own conceptions of the self.

The collection of artists in this exhibition help illuminate the paradoxes of normative categorizations by establishing personified reflections of their own hybridity. Whether it’s a depicted balance between feminine and masculine, or representations of the figure in empty psychological voids, the various works depict the body in moments of conflict as they try to cope with their own intersectionality. This deconstruction of cultural specificity through woven materials reveals that the idea of identity is a misapprehension fabricated by the intricate weavings of social messages, media, and manipulated desires.