As its title recommend, arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Pleasure Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified: Chapter Eight is 2 issues without delay: a gaggle exhibition that includes longtime collaborators and an exploration of the artwork collective fierce pussy.
Structurally, it’s extra the previous. With one exception, the works signify the person practices of the core collective members. The outlier is a fierce pussy poster, which guests are welcomed to take, printed with the road “I got all my sisters with me” from Sister Sledge’s 1979 disco anthem “We Are Family.” The one didactic work in an in any other case dense conceptual present, it’s a nod to the group’s historical past and activism: They fashioned in 1991 to take lesbian identification to the streets with interventions like wheat-pasting posters round New York Metropolis, renaming streets after lesbian icons, and distributing supplies together with greeting playing cards and stickers.
The exhibition was conceived by curator Jo-ey Tang to place the artists’ solo practices in dialogue. A handout identifies the artworks, however there aren’t any wall labels, so viewers can wander the present with out at all times realizing who made what (as I did, intentionally). In consequence, one thing curious occurs: fierce pussy is amplified, not as an activist group however as buddies, companions, and artistic collaborators.
Carrie Yamaoka, “Overlay” (2024), foam block, urethane resin, epoxy resin, traces of reflective polyester movie
The present consists of items that resonate with each other visually and texturally: The principally beige textiles that type Pleasure Episalla’s “removed: 5 skins” (2001/2018/2024/2025) may take a look at first like scraps somebody left on the concrete flooring, however the sculptural sheet of clear, yellowing resin in Carrie Yamaoka’s close by “Overlay” (2024) brings out their folds and coloration variations, and vice versa. Likewise, Yamaoka’s summary mixed-media work “14 by 11 (flake.swell)” (2024) attracts consideration to the formal qualities of Zoe Leonard’s {photograph} “Tree + Fence, Out My Back Window” (1998), whereas the latter coaxes potential figurative readings within the former. The same dynamic unfolds between Yamaoka’s “Stump 3” (2024), a digital print of a tree stump on cloth draped over a wooden panel, and Episalla’s “foldtogram (chromo white/blue, winter 40’ x 50”)” (2025), which jogged my memory of a large, crumpled metallic meals wrapper.
Hypnotic optical work of a cheesecloth-like sample by the late Brody (to whom the present is devoted) allude to the mutability of notion within the present. The shared title — “Glory Hole, (vibgyor)” — articulates queerness as a presence within the two items: “vibgyor” is a mnemonic gadget for memorizing the optical spectrum, or the colours of the rainbow. The presence echoes all through the present in the way in which that some works can denaturalize, or queer, superficial readings of others.
This isn’t to say that the works act as keys to one another. arms ache avid aeon delivered to thoughts a latest present that Yamaoka curated, Publicity at Ulterior Gallery. In her Hyperallergic evaluate, Alexis Clements famous that “Artists aren’t obligated to spoon feed audiences, but it’s a choice to present work that turns in on itself.” This present positively doesn’t spoon feed its viewers, however it creates a cohesive sensibility that’s all of the extra significant due to the human relationships that underlie its formal relationships. Certain collectively by the collective’s poster, the present presents fierce pussy not out on the streets, however in a extra non-public realm communing with each other, like household.
Pleasure Episalla, “removed: 5 skins” (2001/2018/2024/2025), 5 sections: cotton, metallic
Carrie Yamaoka, “14 by 11 (flake.swell)” (2024), reflective polyester movie, urethane resin, and combined media on wooden panel
Nancy Brooks Brody, “Glory Hole, (vibgyor) white on black” (2012), oil on venetian plaster on wooden
Carrie Yamaoka, “Stump 3” (2024), digital inkjet print on artificial chiffon, wooden panel
arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Pleasure Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified: Chapter Eight continues at Participant Inc (116 Elizabeth Road, Decrease East Facet, Manhattan) by Could 11. The exhibition was curated by Jo-ey Tang.
