Open Sessions is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Faber- Castell, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Open Sessions continues with artist directed group exhibitions. Open Sessions 5 presents reliefs, recordings, and imprints of exchange that examine how personal language relates to public discourses, and the artist’s drive to “do art” at any cost. This exhibition features the work of Lauren Bakst, Jimbo Blachly, Daniel Lichtman, Yuri Masnyj, Laura Morrison, Catya Plate, Sarada Rauch, and Alfred Steiner. Organized by the artists and Nova Benway and Lisa Sigal, Curators of the Open Sessions program.
Lauren Bakst’s work takes the form of choreography, performance, video, and writing, exploring questions about subjectivity, affect, memory, and history. Jimbo Blachly’s drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations combine art historical and literary references filtered through humor and daily experience. Using such formats as the webcast, lecture, and sermon, Daniel Lichtman’s work explores the interrelations between belief, gender, and intimacy. Yuri Masnyj makes drawings and sculptures that investigate how the self is registered in our compulsion to collect, compose, and display objects. Laura Morrison thinks of her work as publishing. In writing and gallery-based forms, she examines the awkward clashes between what it means to be vulnerable and what it means to be accountable. Catya Plate uses sculpture, drawing, and animated film to explore how the creation of a new mythology may help address contemporary manifestations of anxiety and angst. Combining video, animation, and object making, Sarada Rauch’s work explores how contemporary technologies of image-making reimagine historical narrative forms. And Alfred Steiner’s work in drawing, sculpture, and watercolor questions the relationship between artistic technique and authenticity, contrivance, and artifice.
Open Sessions is organized by Nova Benway and Lisa Sigal, Open Sessions Curators