Young Space Digest, no.2
On taking good breaks, viewing the Midwest, and stunning textile sculptures
Hello! Welcome to your weekly roundup of great exhibitions and opportunities from Young Space! Today’s edition is a preview of the additional edition that goes out to paid subscribers. If you want to receive an update every single week, consider supporting through a paid subscription—it supports this newsletter and Dovetail Mag—otherwise, the next full digest will be in your inbox next week!
Below, you’ll find:
A note on taking good breaks
Feature: Sagarika Sundaram’s first show in NYC
From the Midwest, with love: Nathan Pearce’s new book
Paid subscribers will also see:
Five great exhibitions on view this week in California, New York, Texas, and the U.K.
Nine opportunities for artists with deadlines coming up soon
Firstly, I’m frankly pretty overwhelmed with gratitude for the notes and encouragement I received this week following the announcement that this project was rebooting. I’ve really missed this community—perhaps more than I even realized!—and coming back totally refreshed is like coming home after a long trip.
I thought I’d briefly mention, too, how totally rad it is to take a break. Call it a hiatus, a pause, a gap, a holiday, or anything you want, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that life and following happenings in the world—whether they affect us personally or not—can be weights. Sometimes, big ones. And as creative people, always looking, absorbing, sorting, applying, expressing… it all can get very heavy.
Personally, I needed a break for a long time, and I was scared of what would happen if I put a hold on something that had become fundamental to my whole lifestyle, and if we’re being totally honest, I often conflated work with who I was as an individual. Talk about the perils of “personal branding,” but that’s a rant for another time.
Often, though, sitting in the middle of something that’s become muddy is just… well, it’s hard to tell, isn’t it? It’s difficult to see anything from there; nothing is clear, and you feel like sludge. Occasionally, there’s nothing else for it but to just get out of there completely so you can look at the whole picture—stand up, dry off, take a look around, and figure out whether you want to dive back in, find a different spot, or maybe a whole new pond… or puddle… I’ve obviously got this metaphor down pat.
Hope you enjoy the news this week! —Kate x
Feature: Sagarika Sundaram
Sagarika Sundaram’s felted textile pieces sing with color. Working sculpturally and often at a large-scale, the artist is painterly with the medium, which she layers and and gestures with as if capturing brushstrokes in fiber. In her current solo exhibition, Source, at Palo Gallery, the artist’s first show in New York City, a 3D piece suspended from the ceiling evokes a colorful ode to Magdalena Abakanowicz’s dimensional, body-like Abakans and layers unfurl like the pages of books.
I love that Sundaram makes the process of felting—a physical and repetitive process of working sections of wool or roving into a matted fabric—appear organic and lightweight. Some fibers seem to float on top of the rest, while other pieces comprise dense layers that one is tempted to pull back or turn over, to reveal what the artist chooses to conceal. These works ply at the thin membrane between interiority and our external environment, what the gallery aptly describes as the “impossibility of separating the human from the natural and the interior from the exterior.”
Source is on view at Palo Gallery through February 4.
Nathan Pearce’s High & Lonesome
I love a Midwest connection. When I moved back to Wisconsin after grad school, in 2014, Nathan Pearce was one of the first artists I met. An Illinois native, he participated in an informal artist residency in a northeast Wisconsin village that a friend of mine ran at the time out of a former police station. His photos were included in one of the very first exhibitions I ever curated, and it’s been exciting to keep up with his work.
Pearce has a wonderfully insightful eye, capturing Midwest life from the perspective of someone who is familiar with its nuances and finds endless inspiration in its idiosyncrasies, turning the lens on rural places with curiosity and affection. I’m really excited to see this new publication by Deadbeat Club Press, High & Lonesome, which surveys pictures Pearce has made over the past several years, come together for his first monograph. Deadbeat Club and Pearce will be at Polycopies in Paris, which starts today and runs through November 12.
…and now for this week’s roundup of exhibitions and opportunities for artists with deadlines coming up soon.
Exhibitions
NEW YORK CITY | SUSAN INGLETT GALLERY
Allison Miller: World
Los Angeles-based artist Allison Miller’s paintings are simultaneously flat and floating, like architectural elements merged with textile details, graphic elements, and hints of nostalgia.
Runs through November 25
LONDON | OPEN SOUTHALL ARTS CENTRE
Martin Lau: Alterations
Martin Lau’s evocative photo collages are on view at the new OPEN Southall Arts Centre in West London. Lau’s autobiographical series reimagines photographs of himself as a child growing up in London in the 1970s and 80s.
Runs through November 30
DALLAS | 12.26 GALLERY
Theodora Allen: The Bowstring’s Tension
An intimate show of paintings that revolve around symbolic and esoteric motifs like snakes, shields, and card suits, redolent of mysterious fairytales.
Runs through December 9
OAKLAND | JOHANSSON PROJECTS
HARDCORE THREADLORE
A group show of work by Dance Doyle, Terri Friedman, and Susie Taylor explores the narrative and sculptural possibilities of fiber. (Work pictured above is by Terri Friedman.)
Runs through December 30
NEW YORK CITY | TARA DOWNS GALLERY
Jiang Cheng: Whiplash
A series of portraits in Shanghai-based Jiang Cheng’s ongoing U series, capturing up-close faces in gestural brushstrokes.
Runs through December 8
Artist Opportunities
Deadlines are coming up soon to apply for these grants, fellowships, residencies, and more.
Ways of Repair Residency
Deadline: November 12
Ways of Repair: Loss and Damage seeks three international artists and/or curators (applying as individuals or as collectives) working within any medium to undertake new or existing artistic research projects between January 2024 and January 2025 that engage with loss and damage, especially related to the climate crisis. Each selected participant or collective will receive a stipend of £10,000.
Submission fee: none
Hopper Prize Grants
Deadline: November 14
Hopper Prize offers unrestricted artist grants of either $3,500 or $1,000 to artists around the world.
Submission fee: $40
Women’s Studio Workshop Grant
Deadline: November 15
Women’s Studio Workshop’s Studio Residency Grant is a six- to eight-week residency for artists to create new work in intaglio, letterpress, papermaking, screenprinting, photography, or ceramics. This grant includes a stipend of $350 per week, up to $500 for materials, up to $250 for travel within the continental U.S., free onsite housing, and 24/7 studio access. Check out the organization’s opportunity calendar for a variety of ways to apply and additional upcoming deadlines.
Submission fee: none
ACRE 2024 Summer Residency
Deadline: November 20
The artist-run ACRE Residency in rural Western Wisconsin invites 20-25 artists for one of three 14-day summer sessions ($700 fee). ACRE serves emerging visual artists, sound artists, musicians, performers, writers, community makers, curators, and administrators, fostering their growth within a cooperative setting.
Submission fee: $55
Smack Mellon Artist Studio Residency Open Call
Deadline: November 20
This opportunity from Smack Mellon provides six eligible NY-based artists working in any visual arts media a free private studio space accessible 24/7 and a fellowship (dependent on funding).
Submission fee: none
Pallas Projects Artist-Initiated Projects Open Call
Deadline: November 23
Pallas Projects/Studios in Dublin, Ireland, invites proposals for Artist Initiated Projects, an Arts Council-funded, open-submission, annual gallery program. This opportunity is aimed primarily at artists who live and work in Ireland, and PP/S selects up to to eight proposals for 3-week-long exhibitions. Selected artists receive €1,000 for a solo presentation or €2,000 for a group exhibition.
Submission fee: none
Experimentica 2024 Festival Open Call
Deadline: November 24
Chapter welcomes proposals from artists based in the U.K. and Ireland that touch on themes of Spring, with an emphasis on performance/live art. Experimentica 2024: Call to Spring, the four-day festival in Cardiff, Wales, will gather artists and communities in celebration of the festival’s legacy and the ecologies that sustain performance. Selected artists are offered a fee between £250 and £2,000, depending on the scale and scope of the work.
Submission fee: none
Bernheim Artist in Residence Program
Deadline: November 27
Up to four artists are selected for residencies at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest (Clermont, Kentucky) on an annual basis, each with a stipend of $2,500. One residency is always dedicated to a regional artist currently living in Kentucky or in Clark and Floyd counties of Southern Indiana. One residency is dedicated to an artist working anywhere whose work addresses environmental issues and climate change. Residents also receive comfortable rustic housing, access to studio space, financial and staff support for the development of new work, and will create a site-inspired artwork, temporary installation, or project as a donation to the Bernheim Foundation.
Submission fee: none
Locust Projects Project Room Open Call
Deadline: November 30
Locust Projects invites local, national, and international artists to propose an ambitious, large-scale new work for the gallery’s Project Room in Miami. The selected artist will benefit from a $5,000 (max.) production budget, a $3,100 artist fee, support from Locust Projects, and accommodations, travel, and per diem for out-of-town artists.
Submission fee: none
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